A Song For Skyrim
by Jack Trader
Summary: I thought I was destined to be no one in particular. And I was happy about that. Then I went off to Skyrim to join the Bard's College and ended up nearly killed, proclaimed Dragonborn, and told I was supposed to save the world, bring about world peace, and feed the children. And I have this really annoying companion I'm hopelessly in love with. And no, I am NOT okay with this.
1. Chapter 1 - A Song For Helgen

**Preamble to Volume I.**

**I originally wrote this as a single chapter, essentially an exercise, since I did not imagine I'd have much to write about this particular game. I had come to the idea chiefly after reading several other fan fics set in the Elder Scrolls and all of them were post game characters, having accomplished everything already. I wanted to write a story about a hero just starting out because for me, getting there is where the fun is. No fun in writing about a Marty Stu. It stayed as a single chapter for a couple of months and then I suddenly realized what I could write about. It was a mod on the Nexus named Sofia - The Funny Fully Voiced Follower expertly programed by John Jarvis and professionally voiced by Christine Slagman. That character mod reminded me of three different women I had known in my life and the tale was born. I took it to the stage I wanted to take it to, and called it done, and then another idea began to percolate in my head and I started to take off with that. And that's Volume II. So what was complete is now getting a new story added, and as I've said three times I'm done posting fan fiction, I think I'll, in the words of Sofia, " just shut up now".**

**The story begins . . .**

* * *

><p>It is with great pain and an overwhelming feeling of grogginess that I begin this narrative. You can call me Valentine if you like, though my friends often call me Val. My last name is Florian and there's something special about it. It's a last name which my ancestor, my great grandmother adopted after she had been told by her grandmother what our true lineage is. But I suppose I will have to explain that now. Not that I've got anything better to do. I'm still recovering from that nasty blow to the head, and the only things I am aware of right at present are the clopping of horses hooves on a poorly made cobblestone highway, the rattle of metal reinforced wheels, and a rather jogging ride on a bench which happens to be part of this wagon I'm in with . . . oh looks like three other people. Four if you count our driver, but he's no one we're liking right now.<p>

You see, once upon a time, there was this fellow, named Martin. Turns out he was the illegitimate son of the Emperor at the time, of the Septim line. But my three greats . . . Umm . . . Screw it . . . My ancestral founder called him Martiboo. You see, before he became a Priest of Akatosh in the city of Kvatch, and was nearly killed by the Daedra during the Oblivion Crises, he himself had flirted with Daedric magic, and that included not a few parties and deals with Sanguine. Well my ancestral founder was apparently quite the pleasure girl and she slept with Martin not a few times. When he became a priest he gently broke it up. Not that my ancestor actually minded. She was way too far into the Sanguine thing to care that deeply for the departure of Martin for the 'boring' life as she called it. So naturally a few days after the break up, she discovered she was at least three months pregnant (she never could count that well and had been wondering for close to sixty days where her period was). My ancestor didn't bother to tell him. She was convinced he would want to marry her and then she would be a boring wife of a priest. At the same time, she thought it would be fun to have a kid. Sort of like having a pet.

Naturally, as you all know, Martin went on to become the last Emperor of the Septim line and sacrificed himself to save Tamriel from the machinations of Mehrunes Dagon. Some say he turned into a dragon and still guards Tamriel from Aetherius. Others say he simply provided the means by which Akatosh could come down and deal with Mehrunes Dagon. But either way, I'm supposed to be the legitimate heir to the Imperial throne . . . If the Septim line still counted, which it doesn't. So I'm no one. Thanks to the fact that my ancestor was a superficial slut.

I don't know if I'm okay with that or not. Actually, I'm not. I wouldn't be here if she had possessed a modicum of responsibility.

So what is this about Florian? Well there's this association with flowers and fire with the name, and during the Oblivion Crises, there were these flaming gates which reminded you a bit of flaming flowers all over the landscape. You can still see some of the wreckage, even to this day, in parts of Tamriel, black ugly rocks and on rare occasions, this red tubular grass which still sometimes grows around them. But only around them.

Damn these bumpy roads. Ever since the war the Empire has gone to oblivion in an omnibus.

So far so bad. Now that you know where I come from, I suppose you want to know what I am doing in this cart with a soldier, a rogue in clothing as ragged as mine, and a noble ass of some sort that has a gag over his mouth.

It starts out with the fact that my father, had a wife before my mother, and she died in childbirth leaving him with a young son and two young daughters. So he married again, and that was my mother My father was a noble in the Imperial City, an advisor to the Imperial Council at times. I mean I should have had it made. But once again, my fate was to be no one in particular. It's not that my mother didn't plot and plan to have me supplant my father's son by his first wife. That's Aurilian, he's a nice enough guy actually, always did right by me. And it was the fact that he genuinely treated me as a real brother that I decided to do what I did. Since it was clear he was the oldest, I didn't learn how to lead and fight, I learned music, and a bit of magic. The clean kind of course. Daedric magic is one of the reasons why I'm not anyone of importance. The daedra can rot in Oblivion. But mother was fit to be tied when I refused to take fighting lessons. She even threatened to paint me yellow, throw me into the arena, and let the blue team rip me to shreds. But I stood my ground. Aurilian was going to be heir and I was going to be behind that. But mother would not take no for an answer, and she began to think about Night Mother rituals. That really bugged me. I went to my dad and told all.

It was one rotten Sundas I'll tell you. You think the Imperial City going up in flames by the Thalmor was bad? You should have seen my mother throw a fit when she was confronted with that nightshade and dagger in her shopping bag. Dad was remarkably restrained. He didn't throw her into prison. He merely locked her up in the attic of our home which overlooked the Arboretum beyond the wall. It was a nice view really. And as for me? I suggested that it might be a good idea to travel abroad and study my music, collecting songs from all over Tamriel until such a time as mom got over her obsession with me being the heir, or dad died and Aurilian took over. Aurilian nearly cried when I left, as did dad. They really have missed me. But I was also my mother's son and sooner or later I was afraid she'd get to me. I left.

I traveled east, then south, then west. I've been all over really. Collected a lot of music. Learned to play the lute, the drum, and the flute. And then I turned north, and traveled into the frozen backside of the Empire known as Skyrim. Lokir was the first guy I met. He was traveling north. Never did tell me where he got that nice horse, but now that I've had a chance to talk with him, I suspect he was thinking of appropriating mine as well. I would have fried his face off of course had he tried, but you know how it is with thieves. He would not have come up like some stupid Kahjiit or Argonian and given me that 'your money or your life' line. He would have simply slit my throat in my sleep and run off with it. Not that he'll have the chance now. The Imperials took both our horses when they jumped those Stormcloaks.

Yes, the Stormcloaks. Idiots the lot of them. Bad enough that the Thalmor kicked our asses in Cyrodil. Ulfric was there. He of all people should have known just how much blood and struggle was spent just to fight those damn bastards to a standstill and thus manage to save something. But no! He had to get all bent out of shape over Talos.

Now don't get me wrong, Talos is a god, one of the nine. I've worshipped at the shrines, I've seen his divine power manifest itself. The Thalmor are bigoted twits who think they can render a deity not a deity by treaty? Like a piece of paper is going to take away divine prerogatives? What is it with the powerful that make them think they can alter reality like that? Oh well, that's one advantage to not being Emperor, I don't have to deal with that sort, or thank the nine, turn into one of them. Yes The Nine. Screw the treaty. I might be all nice and pretend I agree with the Thalmor when I have one over to dinner, but the moment his back is turned it's The Nine.

We could have bided our time, built up our strength, recovered from that blow, and then, ripped those bastards a new one and sent those pointed ear jerks back to Summerset and see the sun set on them come another summer. But that's not going to happen. Ulfric and his Stormcloaks are going to rip the Empire apart and keep us weak so that the Thalmor can recover their strength and finish us off and then we'll not only be without Talos, we'll be without our liberty. It's no secret that the Thalmor think us inferior creatures.

"Hey you?" said a kind and noble Nord voice. "Finally awake?"

"Yeah," I groaned. "Wasn't expecting an Imperial rap on the head. Where's my horse?"

"You were trying to cross the border, right?" The man was blond with a gentle soft beard on his face. Something about him told me he was a good man. But he was in a Stormcloak uniform, that cheap scale armor and hide boots and gloves, hardly worth the effort, especially against my fire. "Got caught up in that Imperial ambush, same as us. And that thief over there."

That was Lokir, who probably was still alive because he had not tried to steal my horse and get his face burned off.

"Damn you Stormcloaks," he snapped. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell by now."

So he was planning on stealing my horse. I grinned. It was nice when suspicions are confirmed, it tells you that your survival skills are growing.

"You there; you and me, we shouldn't be here," added Lokir looking at me. "Its these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."

"You're right about that," I agreed. "If it weren't for all sorts of things, you would be a fried crisp from trying to steal my horse and I would be riding towards Whiterun with a second horse in tow."

I help up my hands, bound before me. "I'm somewhat proficient in destruction magics," I continued. "And these hands have burned more than a few people to ashes.

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," said the Stormcloak.

The Imperial driver, without so much as looking back snapped "Shut up back there."

"So what's wrong with him?" queried Lokir nodding towards the noble sap in the gag.

"Watch your tongue!" ordered the Stormcloak. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King of Skyrim."

"Ulfric? Jarl of Windhelm? You're the leader of the rebellion!" gasped Lokir.

"They got him!" I jumped. "They got him?" I looked over at the noble man, the sap, The Ulfric Stormcloak.

"But if they've captured you . . . By Talos . . . Where are they taking us?" blubbered Lokir. He was frantically looking about, straining against his bonds.

"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits," answered the Stormcloak.

For you maybe, but not for me. I'm an Imperial, not a Nord. No other Imperial will allow his fellow countryman to go to what ever fate these Stormcloaks and that thief were doomed to. I closed my eyes for a second and leaned back. This would all be straightened out soon enough. There would be paper work which would clear my name. I looked down at my rags. They had taken my good clothing, and my horse. And my instruments. AND MY MUSIC. But once things were cleaned up and cleared out, they would open the evidence chest and I would get my stuff back. That was how it was done in Cyrodil, the Empire, and this was part of the Empire. This Skyrim.

"No no! This can't be happening! This isn't happening!"

"Yes it is," I sighed. "Deal with it Lokir. You should have known this was going to be your fate once you picked the career of horse thief. Every hear of a horse thief who died of old age?"

"Hey," said the Stormcloak looking at Lokir. "What village are you from horse-thief?"

"Why do you care?" retorted Lokir.

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home," suggested the soldier.

I looked at the soldier. He was such a good man. In such a stupid cause. I hated the fact that he was probably going to die shortly. I looked up. The two wagons were heading for a village, it had that pretend gate over the road with that walkway which crossed it. Seemed to me to be a waste of time without a wall. But wait, there was in fact a wall. Small one perhaps, not particularly impressive. Nothing like Chorral or the Imperial City, more like Bravil, no . . . Bravil was still better though this village lacked Bravil's stench.

"Rorikstead," said Lokir. "I'm from Rorikstead."

There had been shouting from the wall while I was musing. Something about a General and a Headsman.

Lokir started crying out to the nine divines begging for assistance, to save him.

"Julianos is the god of justice," I observed. "Why would he help a horse thief like you? Kynnareth? She's for fuzzy bunnies . . . I don't know why you are trying to do that. You should be clearing your mind of trying to escape and start thinking about where you're going once you're dead. You're still alive. You still have a few moments to fix it."

"Look at him," sneered the soldier. "General Tulius, the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this."

"Not likely," I retorted. "The Thalmor love what you and Jarl Ulfric have done, bleeding the Empire even more so that their next war will be a more complete war of conquest."

I turned to Ulfric.

"You and your anger may have lost any chance we have of the Empire recovering enough to drive the Thalmor back out of Tamriel, condemning all Nords, Bretons, Imperials, Khajits, Redguards, Bosmer, Dunmer, Orcs, and Argonians to their rule," I accused.

Jarl Ulfric simply ignored me. The soldier opened his mouth to make a retort, but seemed to have thought the better of it. Death was too close for him to be fighting politics.

"This is Helgen," he said to himself. "I used to be sweet on a girl from here." He paused again. "I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with the Juniper berries mixed in."

Ugh. Mead was horribly sweet and tasted like honey. It was nice for a dessert wine, but to drink it like the Nords, like eating a bowl of sugar, you got sick sooner or later. Juniper would not be a nice combination.

"Funny," continued the soldier. "When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel safe."

The wagons were pulling up to a tower. There was the headsman with that big long bladed halberd. Behind him the Imperial dragon banner was flying.

"Why are we stopping?" stammered Lokir.

"Why do you think?" answered the soldier. "End of the line. Let's go," he continued as Lokir got more and more violent in his shaking. "Shouldn't keep the gods waiting for us."

"No!" shouted Lokir. "Wait! We're not rebels!"

"Face your death with some courage thief," replied the soldier.

"You've got to tell them! We weren't with you! This is a mistake!"

All the while we were getting out of the wagon. It felt good to be standing again. There is only so much sitting a man can do before his legs start to itch. Or at least mine do. If only I could get these bonds off and stretch my arms. Oh well, once this was all cleared up I would be free to stretch. Never had trouble with the guards before. Got to know plenty of guards in the Imperial City. Might even be one of them here on tour. There were two Imperial soldiers in front of me. A tall quite man, broad and stocky and a woman in officer heavy armor. She was obviously the commander of the detachment. The tall man had a list.

"Step forward when your name is called!" she barked. "One at a time."

"The Empire loves their damn lists," sighed the soldier.

"Yeah, the lists," I replied. "The thing that will clear my name."

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm," snapped the woman who was the captain.

"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric," said the soldier.

Damn, I hope I have his serenity when I die. To be facing death like this? I could not help but admire him.

"Ralof of Riverwood," continued the captain.

So that was his name.

"And the same for you Ralof!" I shouted. "I would have loved to have called you friend."

"Lokir of Rorikstead."

"No!" shouted Lokir. He took off running, his bonds in front of him. I shook my head as he dashed down the street.

"Archers!" shouted the captain.

"You're not going to kill me!" were Lokir's last words. Then he was on the ground and silent.

"Wait," said the broad soldier, looking straight at me. "You there. Step forward."

I smiled. Here was where it all got fixed.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Valentine Florian," I replied. "Imperial City, Cyrodil. My father is Lord Maximus, advisor to the Imperial Council. I was on my way to Skyrim to research local folk music when I ran afoul of your ambush. Sorry about that. Had I known I would have taken another route. As it is, you can check with the Imperial City Records, they'll let you know I'm who I am and as an Imperial, like your captain there," and here I nodded to the Captain. "You naturally know I would not be part of any Stormcloak uprising."

"What should we do Captain?" asked the soldier. It was clear he believed me. Naturally. We Imperials can be very persuasive when we want to be. It's one of the reasons why the Empire has lasted through thousands of years and more than a few apocalyptic events, such as the Warp of the West and the Oblivion Crises. "He's not on the list."

"Forget the list," snapped the Captain.

Wait a moment. That's not what Imperials do.

"He goes to the block," she finished.

It took a second.

"You BITCH!" I shouted. "You damned bitch! I'm not on that list for a reason!"

She drew her sword and pointed it at me.

"What are you going to do?" I snapped back. "Kill me now and save the headsman the trouble? Either way there's an injustice. Damn you woman! I had faith in the Empire!"

It was all a horrible crashing in. I don't recall clearly what happened just next. I sort of stumbled next to Ralof muttering something about wanting his courage too. Then I could hear General Tullius saying " . . . And now the Empire is going to put you down, and restore the peace."

There was then a strange roar on the wind from above. Someone wanted to know if someone else had heard it too, and Tullius was saying that it was nothing.

I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. I kept saying that over and over to myself. I had to accept it. I had to get ready.

Then there was something about last rites and a priestess starting the final blessings before death and then if someone didn't up and spoil that.

"For the love of Talos, shut up, and let's get this over with!" said a Stormcloak soldier walking up to the block.

"Very well," snapped the Priestess.

"Come on!" he continued. "I haven't got all day!"

Damn that man had guts. Damn that man was wise. Getting it over with. Less time for that ache in the stomach to send those horrible feelings of nausea and dizziness throughout the frame. Talos! I want to die like he is. It's the last thing I get to choose in this life and by the Nine, I choose that. Now if I could only stop shaking.

"My ancestors are smiling at me Imperials. Can you say the same?" he asked. He was kneeling before the block now. Having been pushed down by the foot of the captain. It was standard procedure. The axe came down, his head came off, and I watched every last second of it. That guy deserved a full attention audience.

"As fearless in death as he was in life," observed Ralof.

"I want to die like him Ralof," I said. And I looked at him. Ralof looked back at me. We nodded to each other.

"Next, the Imperial!" ordered the Captain.

"It's Valentine!" I shouted back.

"I said," she said. "Next Prisoner!"

"To the block Valentine," said the broad soldier gently. "Nice and easy."

Yeah, he was a decent man.

"I've got a couple of goodbyes to make first," I replied. "Like are you going to kill me if I wait until then?"

They had no answer to that of course.

I turned to Ralof.

"We should have been brothers," I said.

Then I turned to Ulfric.

"I said you were wrong," I started. "And I don't believe otherwise. Talos is one of the nine. But the Empire had a choice, to let the Thalmor live with that delusion or go down in blood and fire. My father lost friends in the sack of the Imperial City, and Titus signed that treaty struggling to not vomit into the Thalmor embassies faces. Now that we are ripping each other to shreds, we are giving the Thalmor more time to regain their strength and finish the job they set out to do. Namely destroy us all."

He merely glared at me.

"But I can no longer hate you for that. I can now understand the anger and frustration you have no doubt felt. I'm sorry I said anything." Then I turned. "I am an Imperial!" I shouted. "And not just any Imperial. The very blood of Tiber Septim runs in my veins! But since the Empire sees fit to not recognize that . . . From now until my head flies off this body, I LIVE AND BREATH A STORMCLOAK!"

I bowed to Ulfric. His eyes seemed to soften a bit. And then I turned and walked over to the block, and got on my knees and bent over. I wasn't going to give that Captain any excuse to wipe her boots off of my backside. For that brief moment, filled with the drama of the thing, I had managed to forget I was about to die. Then it all came back, that horrible gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I hated that feeling. I was so damn scared.

There was that strange grinding roar on the wind again.

I looked up at the headman who was raising his axe.

And if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have called anyone else who said what they saw utterly out of their skull.

The biggest blackest, spiniest dragon I had ever seen, well . . . To tell the truth I had never actually seen a dragon before . . . Except as a picture hanging over this really fun bar in the Imperial City. He had just flown in between two large mountains, glided gracefully over to the top of the tower behind the chopper himself, and landed wrapping his jointed wings over the sides of that very tower. Damn that creature was HUGE. And then General Tullius was screaming "What in Oblivion is that?"

"Dragon!" screamed some other woman, expressing in her tone more than just the passing observation of the local fauna.

That dragon opened it's mouth and said something.

"RO DA!"

And the sky was filled with boiling ugly dark clouds and flaming bolts fell from them. I was suddenly on the ground, my face in the rocks, and above me was the end of the world.

"Hey Valentine! Get up! The Gods won't give us another chance like this?" It was Ralof grabbing my shoulder and trying to pull me back up.

Gods? The Gods are presently destroying the world and you think we're going to escape? Besides everything is fuzzy, my eyes refuse to focus, what the hell is happening, oh yeah, when the world ends it's supposed to be all blurry and hot and hard to hear anything with all the screams of the terrified and dying.

He's trying to get me to run to a tower. I've got nothing better to do, die from the great flaming balls which are falling from the sky or from the falling rocks in a collapsing tower. I've been pounded. I've been burned. I pick pound. I follow him. Damn I wish I could see. Damn I wish my hands weren't tied up. Damn I wish I had tried to kiss that cute little Bosmer that worked for dad back a few years ago. Strange what sorts of thoughts run through your head when everyone around you is dying horribly. I run.

We're inside, someone gently closing the door. Like that's going to help?

Ralof is speaking. "Jarl Ulfric! What is that thing? Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down villages," Ulfric observes. He looks at me for a second.

"Your head is still attached I see," he observes.

Oh damn. I made that vow.

The dragon outside is still happily playing the Apocalyptic Elder Scrolls Foretold God of Destruction part he's picked for himself.

"We need to move! NOW!" He finishes.

"Up through the tower!" Shouts Ralof. "Let's go."

You know, when the world is going boom, running up a few stories is not the normal sort of sane thing you do. You go to the basement, the cellar, you kiss mother earth and try to bury yourself in it. So why did I run up those stairs? I could conclude that it was the power of Ralof's suggestion. To tell the truth, neither of us were thinking particularly clearly at that juncture. So when that bit of wall explodes in and that big black dragon sticks his face into it I must confess I wet my pants. There's only so much stress that a man can take before his body tells him to screw the loving potty training his mother once gave him. Then of course that dragon, seeing my plight, offers to blow dry my clothing for me. Well, actually I don't think he was being courteous. It was a very hot blow dry you see, mostly flame which left the Stormcloak in front of me a smoking crispy. And so I'm finding myself looking out of a dragon face sized hole and the burning inn beneath me.

"You see the Inn on the other side? Jump through the roof and keep going!" shouts Ralof.

There's fire down there . . . My hands are bound. I can't keep my balance! Oh Oblivion! Screw it, the world's ending and I'm going to die anyway so I might as well die by falling. I leapt and ended up hitting one of those nice double beds with straw and furs who's owner had responsibly tightened up the rope reinforcements underneath and so I bounced and managed to land with both my feet on the floor.

I swear Sheogorath is looking down on me from his palace in the Shivering Isles and has selected me for this week's Mess With Puny Mortal Minds show. I look about. The Inn is only a bit on fire so there's still plenty to grab. Of course my hands are bound, and there's mead just laying about. Yes yes yes I know what I said about mead but at that juncture I really wanted to get drunk and didn't give a flying freak what went down the gullet.

I worked my way down the inn and found that the stairs had gone. Then I got to jump again and found that I was outside and the world had not ended, just yet, it had merely gotten a bit more shabby in the locale. Of course the dragon was still flying around and incinerating everything he could, and then I saw that decent soldier who had stood next to the Bitch Captain. He got a young boy to run to him, passed him off to another man and then turned to face me.

"Valentine? You still alive? Follow me if you wish to stay that way!" he said.

Of course I was going to follow him. We wove our way through the burning village. That black lizard tried to belly flop on us but a wall got into the way and we hid under it for a second while the dragon transformed the rubble and wall blockage in front of us into a nice ash covered pathway for skedaddling like Oblivion itself was after us out of there. We proceeded in our Run Like Our Asses Are On Fire tactic.

Then there was this touching meeting between two villagers who had known each other since childhood.

"Ralof! You Bastard"

"Hadvir! You're not stopping us this time. We're escaping!"

"Fine! I hope you all burn in Oblivion!"

I turned to the broad gentle soldier, Hadvir. Around me, people were trying to kill that dragon and that dragon was likewise returning the favor, albeit way more successfully. So for a very strange second, with a falling body impacting the ground behind him, I looked at Hadvir and tried to convey my respect for him.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You're a good man. But I have to go with Ralof."

"Fine!" he snapped.

Ralof and I dashed into another tower. I didn't know if I would ever meet Hadvir again. But I hoped by all the nine that if I did, it wouldn't be on opposite sides of a battle line. We dashed into another larger tower complex together. There was chaos outside and that was reflected inside this building. For by the table of this large round room with two grilled blocked exits, was another Stormcloak soldier, dead. Ralof recognized him but told me to avail myself of his gear as he would not longer be needing it while he sliced off the bonds which had remained on me up to this moment.

I shook my head and I gratefully waved my hands about and stretched my arms.

"I don't wear armor," I explained. "It gets in the way of my . . ." and I held up my hands and let the fire begin to dance around my finger tips.

"Mage eh?" observed Ralof, showing that Nord distrust of the arcane. "Well, who am I to judge?" he concluded.

I nodded to him and helped myself to the boots and gloves. I may not care for armor, but good boots and gloves are always welcome. Then I was able to avail myself of a nice steel dagger. That was about all I was able to master in terms of hand to hand. A dagger just to hold them off when I had exhausted my mana for my fire. No bow and arrows unfortunately. Problem with my fire was that it was rather short in rage. Great for planting a nice hot orange blossom in the face of an opponent, but rotten if they knew how to stay away from you. And likewise, get an arrow or two off against a bearzerker mudcrab, and it saves the mana for something a bit more troublesome, like a bear or big cat.

Yes yes I know I said I did not study fighting when my mother made me do it. But that was before my wanderings. Since those days I had picked up quite a few skills, mostly superficial of course, but things which kept the septims flowing into my pouch. I had lived a nice life. It was hard at times to sleep in the back of a barn. But I've been rich, I've been poor. Rich is better, or at least a tad more convenient, but there are advantages to being poor. For starters the thieves ignore you. And likewise, you keep starting out with nothing, or keep ending up with nothing, you learn how to turn nothing into something. And in my wanderings, I had ended up with a lot of nothings at times.

Then we heard her, that bitch captain, and another Imperial approaching. Ralof and I promptly hid on either side of the door. Hadvir was not with her, thank the nine. We let into them with all the enthusiasm we could muster. She recognized me she did, before her face was filled with my flames. I was angry, more angry than I could ever recall. Now lest you think I burned her face off, the trick with a gout of steady flame in the face isn't so much the burning, though there is that. The real thing is that fire burns away that essence in the local air which we need to breath in order to live. You fall to the ground, breathless when you are attacked like that. And of course your clothing on fire provides more than a little distraction.

So when she was on the floor her face had not been scarred for life. Singed eyebrows of course, and one really messed up hairdo, but otherwise, she would live. If I had decided on that. I was on top of her looking right into her eyes with my right hand holding her down by the throat and my left hand pointing the dagger at her face.

"Mercy!" she whimpered.

"Forget the list," I replied in a slow low tone. "He goes to the block."

I waited just long enough for her eyes to register that she understood.

And then the dagger came down.

In my travels, I've killed a bunch of people. I lost track long ago. I killed them because I had to. I didn't get up that morning and say, "It's a nice day, I think I'll kill a bandit and take their stuff." No, I got up and tried to do what I always did, pay the innkeeper, hang around town, asked about local tunes and music. Hear the local musicians sing. Write down what I heard, learn some of it, and in short, do what I had set out to do. But when the money was scarce, and no one wanted to hear me sing or play, or my instruments had yet again been lost in some unforeseen disaster or another, I would avail myself of an old Alyed or Dwemer ruin, check out that old abandoned Imperial fort, help a local lord take down a bandit king, in short, earn my keep so I might travel to the next spot on the map and hear the music there. I didn't like killing people. They often had hopes and dreams as well. And like Ralof and Hadvir, they were all so decent and honorable most of the time.

But her? I never regretted killing her. Of all the enemies I've fought that were human or mer. She's one of the very few that I am convinced actually deserved it. Even so I did grant her mercy in a sense. If you plunge the dagger at the top of the shoulder at the base of the throat, it goes right down the center of the body and strikes the heart. That kills you almost instantly. She barely had time to feel the pain of the blade before she was in Aetherius.

From there it was a simple Get The Oblivion Out of Here process. We worked our way through the keep's under pathways, killed a torturer and his assistant, a few more imperials later and then to top it off, there was a frost spider nest and the den of a bear. I finally was able to find a longbow and some arrows. And there was a cart full of wine. I'm not sure why it was there, in the middle of the bear's den, but it was still good and I didn't begrudge it. After all, good wine fetches a nice price with the innkeepers since you can barter it for a night's sleep. Two to three bottles is all that it takes normally.

And then we were out of there. We ducked as the big black lizard flew overhead heading off to The Nine knows where and then Ralof suggested two things. The first, that I join the Stormcloaks. The second, I accompany him to Riverwood where his sister Gerder and her husband Hod ran the local wood mill and would give us aid and sustenance.

That oath . . . That BLOODY Oath. I was bound and I knew it. But just because I swore myself a Stormcloak did not immediately or necessarily obligate me to fight Imperials. I was working hard on figuring out how I might keep that oath and at the same time not have to run off to Solitude and overthrow Jarl Elisif and General Tullius. Just the same, for a brief second I kind of wished that the headsman had taken off my head before that dragon had landed. But in the meantime, Riverwood was maybe an afternoon's walk away and there would be a bed and food. I needed a good meal. And I had wine in a backpack I had appropriated in the 'interrogation' chambers, and a book, The Tale of the Dragonborn. Something to read when I had nothing better to do. Steel dagger? Check. Longbow? Check. Arrows? Check. Backpack with wine and book? Check, and this silly key which opened a door in the tower in what was now a smoldering ruin which used to be called Helgen. Oh well, maybe a souvenir? No matter, I can toss it later if I wish, or play that old trick of sticking it in a barrel for some other sap to discover one day and then wonder which lock it fitted.

I love mind games.

Ralof was busy pointing out the sights we could see from the trail, including an old Nordic ruin on the a ridge of the mountains across the river. It was a beautiful day and I let him talk. Soon we would be in Riverwood, there would be hot food, maybe I could find a tailor to make me a nice suit of clothes, an inn to play in for a few septims, and some rest. I needed rest. Life was looking up now. The worst was no doubt over.

And so we walked down the trail, got on a cobblestone road that ran along that clear crisp river filled with salmon and I figured life was good again. What ever would happen tomorrow, it couldn't be worse than what had happened today.

I'm such a naive idiot at times.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Song For Sofia

I woke up in a bed. It wasn't the best sort of bed around, nothing like the stuffed feather matresses which you can find in Cyrodil in even most of the inns. Granted, the mattresses in Cyrodil can be quite dirty or at least so old as to be grey, but they were still mattresses. Here it was just a pile of hay on a wood frame with rope bindings and covered in animal skins, but it was good enough and preferable to the cold hard ground. Ralof had been good on his word. Gerda his sister and her husband Hod had given us both hospitality and that included good food and a comfortable bed to sleep in. So I spent three days in that village doing odd jobs, mostly with the blacksmith Aldor, trying to earn a few septums so I might be able to do the big favor they really wanted me to perform for them, specifically get to Whiterun and warn Jarl Balgruuf of the dragon.

So after three days, having sung a few songs in the inn for the innkeeper, a woman named Delphine, I set out for Whiterun. That involved crossing a bridge over the river, then turning to the northeast and following the river for a few miles. The elevation gradually declined. I was getting lower and lower into the tundra of Skyrim and finally turned to the west as the road reached a T intersection. It was a smaller stream I was now following and passed a meadery and then found myself on the edge of a very large farm where a giant was busy 'amusing' a pack of warriors. By now the sun was setting and I was getting tired of traveling so I just stood and watched the fight for a bit since the four warriors, two guys and two girls, seemed more than capable of handing this giant. I was rather impressed quite frankly. When a giant hits you, it's not unusual to find yourself flying for a few hundred yards, almost half of it in an upward direction. Needless to say, you invariably don't finish the trip alive. These folks were ducking and weaving like they actually knew what they were doing. After about three or four minutes the giant was dead and I walked up to them. The older of the two women, which was a relative term since she looked like she was an adult as opposed to the other girl who looked as if she was still under the age of twenty, walked up to me and said something along the lines of . . .

"Well that was a victory, no thanks to you."

"It didn't look like you needed any help," I observed.

"A true warrior would have relished the chance to test their mettle," she retorted.

"A wise warrior knows when to fight and more importantly, not to fight," I replied.

She snorted and walked off.

The two men looked at me briefly.

"And you two are?" I asked.

"We're members of the companions," one of them offered. "And when the pay is good, we fight for glory and honor.'

"Ah, the Fighter's Guild," I replied.

Both men gave me a look which suggested I had just proposed that they were the children of a drunk orc and a Breton shepherd's prize ewe. It was my cue to wander on. It was getting late. The sun had set, the twilight was fading and it was clear I was not going to make it to the gate before curfew was called.

Now I could have probably negotiated my way into the city after curfew but then you have to hope that the inn had rooms. And I had never been to Whiterun before and had no clue what I would find there. So, eyeing the stable I opted for the bail of hay bed. Stables are not the nicest place to sleep in, but ironically, the hay is rather clean when you consider the cold hard ground. And you can really bury yourself into it and it's rather warm then. The smell is not bad once you get used to it. Finally, the hay is always in a state of gradual and slow decay. And while vegetation rots, even slowly, it generates heat. I'm being quite honest here. Bury yourself in the stuff and you keep warm. Farmers can't be too careful however. Store it piled high and some hot summer's day later, hay bales have been known to spontaneously combust. So I headed into the stable and made my way for the hay pile and sure enough there it was. Problem was someone else had already gotten my idea.

Now there comes a point where you have to look at the situation and suspect it is simply too good to be true. Or at least you would if you were not suffering from a peculiar eye dazzle which I will presently explain the reason for. Because it wasn't just anyone who was sleeping in that pile of hate. There was a very cute pair of feet with small well spaced toes, two very shapely calves, a set of thighs which were toned enough to betray no hint of flab, a very nice rounded set of hips, a flat belly, two perfectly proportioned breasts, neither too big or flat, beautiful shoulders, graceful neck, and then we get to the face.  
>The face wasn't just perfect, it was the face of a goddess. If Dibella was wanting to get my attention, she had succeeded with the professional acumen which only comes from being divine. There was a pouty set of lips, button nose, and a mass of thick black hair which fell all over the place. And a light sprinkle of freckles under the eyes to go with the combo.<p>

And as you might have guessed, given my very detailed description of her feminine physic, she wasn't wearing much. And she was sound asleep. And never in my life had I experienced something like this before. I mean I've read of stuff like this happening, but I never believed it would happen, at least of all to me. No, this sort of thing happens to heroes, handsome suave charming fellows with chiseled faces and bright shining steel armor, the sort the noble fops of Cheydenhal wear. So naturally I wanted to get to know this woman and since I had a perfectly valid reason for being there. I decided to wake her up and ask if I could have some of the hay to sleep in. And once she had seen me sleep next to her, the perfect gentleman without laying a single hand upon her, she would conclude that I was a decent dude and we could get to at least know each other's names, professions, and her address.

"Hey," I said gently. "I don't want to wake you up, but I need to sleep here tonight and might you be willing to part with half of this hay pile so I can sleep over in that corner there?"

I really wanted to assure her that I wasn't going to try anything. I mean when you are a young girl, almost naked, and asleep in a barn, you don't want some strange guy coming up giving you suggestive hints. At least I don't think you do. I've never actually been a nearly naked young girl asleep in a barn so I'm going on common sense here. Her eyes fluttered, and they were the nice big sort, which went perfectly with the rest of the face arrangement so she was even more drop dead gorgeous as a consequence. And then she began to speak as she sat up, and reached for her forehead.

"Mmmm, What? Where am I? Ugh my head. Oh! It's you! I mean what? No I've never seen you before. I have no idea who you are. It's not like I've been stalking you or anything."

And the magic was gone.

Now this is the part where the smart intelligent person backs away slowly. The problem was, while I knew I should be backing away slowly, part of me was very much wanting to close in slowly. I mean this is one incredibly good looking girl right here, the sort that I never had gotten up the nerve to talk to before, you know the type, so damn good looking you immediately exempt yourselves from the running since you know half a dozen guys who are way better than you at doing all the stuff that young girls go all gah gah over. Remember how I wished I had kissed that cute Bosmer back in da's estate? Same feeling. She was simply too good looking and I was an ordinary human guy who had a fear of heights. But having nearly had my head cut off and a big black dragon destroying a village around me had given me a sense of perspective. That was simply still too fresh. Here was my chance to make up for the lost Bosmer kiss. It's not as if I didn't start to back up, my mind was desperately telling the rest of my body that I needed to run screaming, but another part of my body was very pointedly observing that she had liked me enough to want to track me down and she was presenting an almost full vista of her feminine qualities which were practically perfect.

It was clear that she was observant when it came to the body language part. She saw I was starting to back up.

"No wait! Don't leave! I'm injured. Yes! I'm injured! And you have to take me with you otherwise I might die and you wouldn't want that on your conscious?"

You know, if she had just smiled sweetly and nodded from the second she had begun waking up, I would have been entirely smitten and followed her around like a puppy doing the duh duh de duh routine. But I had experienced enough of life that this was going to be addressed and promptly. And it while it was a mental backing away slowly, it likewise engaged her which meant I didn't have to run screaming just quite yet.

"Injured?" I observed. "Oh dear. I'm going to have to examine this injury. I have some medical skill. But I'm kind of at a loss. It does not seem to be visible right now and given how much of you I can observe, it must be in some very well concealed, not to mention embarrassing, part of your body."

She was back like a shot. Or tried to. The bolt kept tripping over the air currants as it were.

"Yeah . . . Well . . . that's because . . . OK! FINE! If you take me with you I will make it worth your while. You won't find anyone tougher than me in Skyrim, not to mention as good looking."

I wasn't going to argue with the good looking part. Tougher? Well her mouth was big and brassy, but I've yet to see words deflect a two handed sword.

Here was my chance to say no. But that face . . . that neck . . . those shoulders . . . that great pair of . . . well you get the idea. All I had to do was make sure she didn't talk and the fantasy could be revived.

"I could use the company," I admitted. "But it's too late to work out the details. I need half that hay bale for tonight and we can talk in the morning."

"I'd enjoy a little chat," she admitted. And she stood up and helped me make a second hay bale in the opposite corner. All this time, she made no move to dress herself. But as I scanned the area, I began to suspect that she had not undressed and put her clothes in some corner. Rather, she had undressed in some spot she was no longer capable of remembering and was as of yet, unconcerned. I wasn't sure about this girl, but I was simply too incapable of resisting someone that pretty.

I flopped down on the hay and looked at the ceiling. There were the usual component of spiders and their webs, but they were busy for the most part with maintenance. After that stunning introduction, I wasn't exactly sleepy and well I wanted to get to know her better. Yes yes yes I know I said if I could keep her quiet the fantasy could be revived but . . . Never mind.

"So why were you looking for me?" I asked.

"What makes you think I was looking for you?" came back the reply with just a hint of accusation.

"You said so."

"Damn it," she grumbled. She'd been caught. She knew it. "Look," she continued. "It's no fun doing heroic stuff if there's no one around to see you do it. So I thought you could use the company."

"And this heroic stuff you've done?"

"Well . . ." there was a pregnant pause, the sort that suggested twins. "I kill things, get drunk, cause trouble."

"The sort of heroic things which are not written about in the books right?" I turned my head to look over to her. She was on her side, somewhat curled up. She gave me a rather annoyed look back. "The next question I have is this . . . Where are your clothes?"

"What? Oh! Damn! Umm . . . Look if you have any I would appreciate it. AND STOP STARING AT ME YOU PERVERT!"

"Now you said it yourself that you were good looking. Am I supposed to pretend you are not there?"

I sat up, and pulled my rather dingy shirt off. It was the only shirt I had, having lost everything when the Imperial Evidence Box had been somewhat burned up by that big black spiny dragon during his "I'm the apocalyptic god of destruction" phase in Helgen. Gerda had pointed out a local seamstress in Riverwood who had made the shirt for me after I had chopped up enough wood for the week's cooking. I also had a cloak and gloves, but tomorrow morning we would be in Whiterun and I knew how to get clothes.

"Here you go," I said holding it out for display. And being that I had my suspicions about her behavior I continued with. "Come and get it."

She half lunged and then caught herself. It was as I had suspected. I had been a horribly naive young lad in Cyrodil. I had missed out on several young girls who's eyes had been caught. When your father is rich and you get to dress nice you would be amazed at how many young lasses decide they want to get to know you. Looks have nothing to do with it. Then I had started to travel and sure enough, I had learned to pick up the signals. Unfortunately I was always traveling, never staying any place long enough to take advantage of the young girl infatuation with the musical traveling bard fellow attribute. Here was one however, who had tracked me down. She just didn't want to admit it to herself that she was attracted to me. Which is rather funny when you think about it.

"No," she said, rather imperiously if you ask me, "You give it to me."

"But," I countered. "If I give it to you, you're going to put it on and cover up that really nice physique you have which is looking very soft and sensual in the moonlight. Why would I want to do that?"

"YOU ARE SUCH A PERVERT!"

"Okay, YOU get drunk. YOU take off your clothes, no doubt in front of a pile of guys, and you call ME a pervert!"

"So I was letting off a little steam. Can't a girl have a little fun?"

"And you think I'm not having fun admiring your body?"

"Damn it, give me that shirt!"

"Say, 'Please dearest Valentine, give me your shirt so my adorable body won't be so distracting to you and fill your mind with thoughts of making love to me under the moonlight on this pile of hay.'"

She lunged and the wrestling match for the shirt had begun. A match I firmly intended to lose, but I also intended to have a little fun while losing.

She was rather strong, and in an entirely feminine way too. Like any other girl her strength was primarily in her legs while I had the advantage with the arms, but she knew how to use her legs and I, alas, was not particularly practiced with my arms. I was not a wrestler in my youth. So in about thirteen or so seconds she had the shirt and I had given her tush a swat and she had slammed her knee into my sternum and I spent the next few seconds gasping for breath like a dying fish all cured up to boot . . . Pun intended. She had that rather pouty smug look on her face as she donned the shirt.

"You are an Imperial," she noted. And then she proceeded to but a rather smug and arrogant slur into her voice and said, "Please sign these papers before I chop off your head because I'm such a big bad imperial . . ."

"So are you," I replied.

"I am a NORD!" she proclaimed.

"Nah," I replied. The sternum kick, as you might have observed, had taught me nothing about what she was capable of. "Your hair is too black, your face is too southern, and your mouth is too narrow and your lips are too pouty puffy cute to be a Nord."

"What about my boobs, you didn't mention my boobs."

"Just the right size," I said. Then I began to chuckle nervously. This was simply too damn funny.

"For a Nord?"

"No, an Imperial. If they were Nord, they would be bigger than your mouth."

She didn't lung again. She simply snorted and flopped down on the hay.

"Nighty Night," I suggested.

"Shut up, Valentine," she replied.

I lay back down.

"Tomorrow," I said, "We'll go into Whiterun, I'll get you and me something nice to wear. Then I'll make us some armor. Might take a few days. Oh . . . I have one errand I have to run. I need to speak to Jarl Balgruuf. Riverwood is asking for aid and I'm the messenger for them."

"The Jarl's Hall?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I tried to get into there. They wouldn't let me. They were upset . . . Probably had something to do with that thief who escaped while I was distracting the guards."

"Was this before or after you had lost your clothes?"

"Can't remember. I must have been drunk."

"Well if even if you can't fight, which I suspect you can, you are definitely going to be entertaining on the road," I mused. Yes, I admit, I was still thinking with the nether regions of my body and not with my head.

"Of course," she replied. "Oh," she continued. "I'm Sofia. But you probably already knew that."

"Being famous and all?" I queried.

"Yes," she replied.

I didn't. But I was finally starting to feel sleepy and didn't want to start another half comic half violent exchange with Miss Maximus Mouthimus.

I had no idea how important that shirt had been. It was cold that night. And there was not enough hay to keep me warm by a long shot. Sofia was shortly asleep again herself and started to snore. So when I did finally fall asleep, it was fitful and uncomfortable. But when I woke up the next morning, she was sitting in the corner looking at me.

"About time you got up," she suggested.

"You could have woken me up?" I suggested. "You know, snuggled up next to me, whispered sweetly in my ear . . ."

"Punched you in the stomach again?"

"That would have worked too," I admitted with a grin. I was simply in too good a mood. There she was, with that cute little button nose, waiting for me to wake up. It was like I had a real girlfriend, after all these years. So what if she needed a serious spanking and maturity potion. So what if I was aching and sleepy. So even though I was dressed in a pair of boots, pants, belt, gloves, and cloak, and she was sitting there in my shirt, I was ready to take on the world. And the world, once it had gotten it's breath back from laughing so hard, would have promptly smushed me. So it was a good thing I didn't. We left the stable while she simply smugly ignored the stares which were directed at us. After all, my shirt only covered the upper quarter of her thighs and was slit on both sides somewhat higher. Nothing in particular was on display but there was no doubt her underwear was rather abbreviated.

"Halt," suggested the guard. "The Jarl has ordered the city closed with the dragon about."

"I didn't do it!" argued Sofia.

"I know," I said to the guard. But not before I tilted my head in Sofia's direction and rolled my eyes. The expression of course was for the guard. "I was in Helgen." I finished.

"You were in Helgen?" queried the Guard, somewhat surprised. "You are admitted. The Jarl will want to speak to you personally."

I nodded and walked in with Sofia.

I took a quick look at the street before me. There was the guard house directly to my left, and it was the only building in sight which had a flat roof. No doubt the perfect place to shoot arrows from should anyone break through the main gate. Beyond that was a tavern I'm thinking, called The Drunken Huntsman. Then on the right was not just a black-smithy, but a smelter as well. But the blacksmith wasn't a man, it was a woman and she was in an argument with an Imperial. Or at least I could conclude by the armor he was wearing. There was a debate over an order and her objections that she couldn't turn out the items fast enough. The conversation ended with him suggesting he would rather bend his knee to Ulfric Stormcloak and I made my move.

"Hello?" I queried to the woman. I had heard him call her Adrianne. "I am in need of some help and if you are going to need some help meeting that order, I know a bit about smith work and will be happy to assist in exchange for clothing and leather and a bit of iron."

"Why . . ." Began Adrianne who was looking at this couple sharing a single set of clothing.

"Well my wife and I were set upon by thieves and . . ."

"WIFE?" snorted Sofia. "Like anyone is going to believe that?"

I sighed and looked back at Sofia.

"A bit new to the survival game are we?" I asked her rather condescendingly.

She realized she had opened her mouth when she shouldn't have and sighed a single "Damn it."

I turned back to Adrianne.

"I suppose I had better tell the truth now shouldn't I?"

"Yes," she said. "If you want me trusting you enough to assist me in the shop, not that I won't be extra careful watching you anyway.

"Okay, here's what happened," I said. "I was on my way from the Imperial City towards Solitude when I was attacked by Imperial Soldiers who mistook me for the horse thief I was riding besides. I was taken to Helgen and with my head on the executioner's block, a big black dragon flew in and started to blow the place up. Since the guard was distracted, I made a run for it. Then just when I think I'm about to be killed, in comes Ulfric with his Stormcloaks who rescue me and get me safely to Riverwood. From there I walked to Whiterun where I found this woman naked and asleep and it was love at first sight so I agreed to share my clothes with her and here we are."

Adrianne paused and looked at the two of us. Her head tilted just a little and her mouth remained just a smidgeon open.

"It's true I swear!" offered Sofia.

"Mister and Misses?" suggested Adrianne.

"Florian," I answered. "Valentine and Sofia Florian."

"Come with me," said Adrianne.

We walked over to the forge and I turned to Sofia.

"The first rule in the survival game is this," I said to her. "The truth is always stranger than fiction. So when the truth is really strange? Come up with a very mundane fiction. Besides," I continued. "Why would anyone not believe it when a man calls a woman his wife and she nods her head in agreement?"

"Well, when you are as good looking as me, you can't possibly be married," she replied.

I will admit, she had a point . . . somewhat. But not entirely. Hindsight has since told me that we had none of the signals which a person could pick up that would have suggested we were married. There wasn't the constant affection which newlyweds express towards each other, nor was there the totally at ease posturing which more long term marital relationships have.

Adrianne put me through the paces and while it was clear I could not do steel, I was familiar enough with leather and iron and hide that I could make sufficient items of fine enough quality to work for the Imperials who would be needing these for the war effort. There were several types of light Imperial Armor I could craft and I could make iron arrows. Sofia could not help in the smithy so I had her gather up the cloth we would need and when I could, I instructed and assisted her in the art of cutting patterns and sewing clothing. Eventually I was able to craft a set of combination clothing and armor for her, a decent set of garb I could wear for daily wanderings, and we both had a nice set of clothing which we could relax in when we were not trudging through the underbrush and tundra. One week after I had started at the smithy, Adrianne was more capable of handing the remaining orders, thanks to my assistance, and grateful that I had found the time to deliver a present from her to the Jarl through her father. I was ready, but more importantly able, to move on. She was not entirely happy that we were going. Cheap labor is hard to come by, especially when it turns out to be honest. An ironic statement I freely admit given that we started out on a lie, but there are lies, and then there are damned lies, and then there are Imperial Proclamations. But I had to leave because the Jarl had sent me to his wizard Farengar who wanted me to go back to Riverwood and into Bleakfalls Barrow where there was supposed to be this Dragon Stone I was to retrieve.

So one Turdas morning, in the last third of Last Seed, Sofia and I walked out of Whiterun and headed back up the road towards Riverwood. I was in a nice blue long shirt and pants with calf boots and she was in a nice burgundy outfit with black leather vest and skirt. Her hair was in a pony tail which draped over her shoulder and her eyes were big and bright. She was looking, as I had observed prior, quite beautiful. I tried to tell her so, but her replies were always along the lines of "I know" and "of course" and that kind of took the fun out of it. But I was feeling confidant. I had been able to secure a two new spells from Farengar who had agreed to sell them to me cheap after I delivered some refined frost salts to Arcadia the Alchemist who, unbeknownst to Farengar, was going to mix them into a love potion she was planning to slip into his drink the next time they were together. Sofia would not leave the shop until after Arcadia promised she would tell all once the potion had been administered.

"Seriously Sofia," I began after we had walked out of the shop.

"It'll be a hoot!" argued Sofia. "It would have been even funnier if I had thought to suggest she add a laxative to the potion."

Suffice to say, the spells would enable me to conjure a magical barrier around me and likewise terrify any undead who would happen to be in the Barrow. Drauger were apparently, a problem in Nord Burial Mounds.

And so there I was. On my way back to Riverwood, a beautiful woman at my side, and new spells to try out and just a dive into an old Nord ruin where there would be, no doubt, a bit of treasure to secure which could be sold. I'd soon have my money and instruments back, and then I could proceed to collect more music. And if I could keep Sofia with me long enough, maybe, just maybe, she'd be honest enough to admit to herself that she and I would be a great team and well after that . . . I wondered just what sort of lover she would be. Would that confidence translate in the bed chamber?

Not that I actually knew anything about that. Remember, at this point, I had never kissed a girl before.

Really, I can be a very naive twit at times.


	3. Chapter 3 - A Song For Camilla

"Victory or Sovengard!" screamed the Brigand charging at me with that long nasty two handed sword.

Backpedal backpedal backpedal Talos! I hope I don't trip over a rock. I was throwing as much fire into his face as possible but I could not master that two hand cup which was supposed to make the fire three times as hot and deadly. His sword was lifted and I was thinking I was going to die because in spite of my Oaken Flesh spell I knew that sword would only pause to scratch it's armpit when it hit that spell barrier before cleaving my body.

"I don't want to boast but I'm superior to you in every way!" observed Sofia as she deftly put a foot into the charging brigand's hip. He staggered and lost his balance and his sword went down and I was able to shift to the right. "Why am I deceiving myself I LOVE TO BOAST!" continued Sofia as she unleashed her own fire into the Brigand's face. I finally got the cup right and the two of us finished him off.

I paused to pant and calm down. That one had scared me. The Oaken Flesh spell had done very nice against daggers and iron swords, but once the sword was steel or the weapon was two handed it wasn't much good. But it was the best I could master at this point. I had thought I was pretty hot. I had thought my flames and heal spell had it all covered. But these Nords were a bit tougher than the trouble makers I had encountered in Cyrodiil. I had already taken a few slices but Sofia had been there with a quick heal spell. I was beginning to wonder if I would need some form of armor. But in the meantime, this fellow had to be relieved of his armor, and sword. It was this stuff that was paying the bills as it were.

"Sofia?" I said. "Open your backpack for this hide."

"Why must I hump all this to please you?" she snapped. "I mean hump in the carrying kind and not the other kind before your dirty mind gets any ideas?"

"You want to trade backpacks?" I offered. "And I'll put it in yours since it will be on my back."

She pressed her mouth and crossed her arms. She knew I had filled up my pack first and was now filling hers second.

"FINE!" she offered. "But when we get back you owe me SUCH a foot rub."

"Oh all right," I replied with an exaggerated sigh. Given any excuse to put my hands on her I naturally had no intention of denying her request no matter how servile it seemed to be to me. There would have been those who would have suggested I was becoming her lap dog as it were, or at least portable butler, but I seriously had it bad. I mean I really wanted this girl to be mine. And I was prepared to do anything for her if she asked. Well within what reason I had that was not yet utterly clouded by the fact that for the first time in my life I had a girl who wanted to hang around with me. My common sense would occasionally kick me right where it counted and I would back off. But a foot rub? No problem, I will be the love slave, just watch me.

I looked over at Bleakfalls Barrow. We had yet to enter the barrow. There had been Brigands the whole way and I was making sure we stripped them of everything they had of value. Then it was back to Riverwood and it was sold. The Riverwood Trader, that brother and sister team, were proving very cooperative, especially after I had promised him I would retrieve his golden claw. But the sun was starting to set and I didn't want to get into the Barrow until tomorrow at daylight, so we trudged through the snow and started heading back. Rumor said Draugar were in the tombs, in spite of the bandits who were hanging about the place, and I just felt more secure delving deeply into that barrow at some time other than night. Sofia was offering no objections, as the surplus stuff was going into her backpack.

"Back to the inn," I suggested. "And tomorrow we go into the barrow."

"Whatever," replied Sofia.

I turned to her as we were walking and once again that incredibly cute face utterly enraptured me. I mean I could look at that face of hers for nearly ever. She gave me a glance out of the corner of her eyes and then looked straight ahead with an act of will. Then she peaked back at me and once again looked forward. I kept looking at her as we walked down the trail, she stole another glance back at me and tried not to smile.

And then I tripped over that branch and fell flat on my face.

Sofia, being that nice and considerate girl that she was, laughed and made no inquiries as to my injuries.

I got back up, looked at her, and with my common sense once again asserting itself, I replied, "I'll be okay, thanks for asking."

Sofia shrugged. "I figured you would get over it," she replied. "But you were funny when you fell. There you are making moon eyes at me one second and then FLAT on your FACE!"

"And of course the fact that I'm looking at you because you are so pretty merely is your due, right?" I grumbled.

"Of course," she replied. "I like to be admired, and because I'm attractive, I deserve to be admired."

"You are such a vain woman, what are you going to do when you get old?"

"Get drunk and kill stuff," was her reply.

"Why am I in love with this woman?" I mentally asked myself.

"Because you keep thinking some day she'll change her attitude and snuggle up to you and whisper how much you mean to her," came the little aside voice back. "Face it Valentine, you're in a fantasy land and Sofia is nothing more than a pretty face on a nice body with your own wishes being thrown against it in the desperate hope something will stick."

We crossed the bridge and turned right and walked to the Sleeping Giant Inn and went in. Delphine was no where to be found but Orgnar the cook and bartender simply tossed me the keys to the two open rooms and I gave one to Sofia. Lucan was in the tavern sitting at one table with his sister Camilla and I noticed that the bard, Sven was looking at her and smiling. Then he sang a little love song about being in love with a girl who made him think of Carmel and Camilla smiled.

That was my cue, since I had never heard that song before and leaving Sofia with a few bottles of wine within reach, which she of course began to drink, I walked over to Sven and we began to talk shop. He let me borrow his drum and while I was busy beating the rhythms he was playing the lute and we had a rather fun impromptu jam session. We looked over to where Sofia was seated, and she was rather lazily swaying back and forth to the music. She had drained two bottles already and I suspected she would polish off the third shortly.

"Your girlfriend is getting drunk again," observed Sven.

"Yeah," I replied. "It's the only time she lets me hug her . . . Sort of anyway."

Sven stole a glance at Camilla.

"Faendal thinks he can woo Camilla," remarked Sven. "She's mine I tell him."

"Really?" I replied. No doubt because I was always with Sofia the folks in Riverwood had us as a couple, and so Sven was looking for an ally, or at least a sympathetic ear.

"Yeah," he continued. "Always in the shop talking with her. Like he's got a chance."

"Right," I replied with a sigh. "Two people talking for hours on end almost never develop a relationship."

"I've heard better sarcasm," was Sven's retort. "But you do have a point. Maybe I can tip the scales a bit. See me in the morning will you? I'll have something for you."

"Sure," I said. Not sure at all what he might mean by that. I wasn't entirely liking the look in his eyes. I got up and walked back over to Sofia.

"You know?" she slurred as she sort of got up and leaned against me. "If an Argonian and Khajiit had a baby? That would be one ugly baby."

"Might be," I ventured as I helped her towards her room.

"I wonder what sort of babies we would have," she mused. "I mean hypothetical. My looks and your . . ." She didn't finish the sentence. The look on her face suggested she had not a clue.

"After all that time trying to track me down and you've never found something about me you like?" I suggested. "So why are hanging around?"

"I'm not hanging around, I'm helping you stay alive," she replied.

We had reached the bedroom and she fell upon the bed. I helped her out of her boots and proceeded to give her a foot rub.

"I could get used to this," she suggested. And then she was fast asleep . . . And snoring.

Yes, snore. If you don't think women can snore, allow me to enlighten you.

I walked back out of her room, looked in to see that she was in fact asleep, and likewise, because of the situation, should anyone look in besides me they would see she was fully clothed. If I was going to make love to that woman, and folks were to be talking about it, I didn't want the idea that I had seduced her while she was entirely blotto being part of the picture. I closed the door and went to the next room, closed that door, and fell asleep dreaming of her in my arms.

The next day, after unloading our loot at the Riverwood Trader and getting to know Camilla a bit more, a woman who clearly loved the attention, Sofia and I set out for the Barrow.

"Camilla's a Whore . . . Ker . . ." was Sofia's observation once we were out of town and climbing up the trail towards the Barrow.

"She's just jealous," I replied. "She's jealous of your looks so naturally she tries to butter me up to prove she's the better woman."

"Oh?" replied Sofia who had not seen it in that light. "Oh that's right. Yeah."

Like I said earlier, since the truth is stranger than fiction, make sure you come up with a fiction the other person is more likely to believe. I shook my head and we proceeded to clear out the last of the brigands in the Barrow. And a handful of Drauger. And I didn't like that at all. But I had purchased Turn Lesser Undead when I had been in Whiterun and so I was able to keep the creatures away from me. Sofia of course was not at all adverse to chasing them a bit and putting a few arrows into them before she came back to me. I had to admit I really was depending on her and that was beginning to bug me. I wanted her to depend on me, not the other way around.

By the time I got back, Sven was waiting for me with a piece of paper.

"Give this to Camilla and tell her it's a letter from Faendal," he said.

I replied "Okay," somewhat slowly and nodded. Then I walked back to my room, sat on my bed and motioned Sofia to join me. She walked in with a mug full of mead. But she was not yet drunk.

I read the letter and decided it wasn't the sort of thing I would give to any woman.

"What do you think Sofia?" I asked as I showed her the letter.

"Crude, Rude, Obnoxious," was her estimation of the script. "I hate people who are like this, you know? The sort who are always bragging about themselves and thinking they are so great." She paused. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

"I don't feel right about giving this to Camilla and telling her it's from Faendal," I said with a sigh, not to mention trying to change the subject so this would not turn into yet another snap fest between the two of us.

"Then talk to Faendal about it and see what he has to say," was Sofia' suggestion. "Maybe you'll start a fight . . . Won't that be a hoot?"

That gave me an idea . . . A very bad idea. And the sort Sofia would love.

The next morning, after we had once again unloaded our loot at the Riverwood Trader, and I had once again gotten a few words in with Camilla, I walked over to Feandal's house and knocked on the door. He was a decent enough Bosmer, older and likewise a good archer. Once he had seen the letter he snorted and replied, "Well two can play at that game. Come back this evening and I'll have my own letter."

"Okay," I replied once again and Sofia and I proceeded to delve deeper into the Barrow, before once again loaded down with ancient Nordic loot, we returned to the Inn that evening.

"I don't think we're going to the Barrow tomorrow," I began the conversation after she had read Feandal's letter which was claiming to be from Sven.

"What do you have in mind?" she replied.

"I think it's time we took an active hand in this little rivalry between Sven and Faendal," I answered with a sigh. "Call me naive . . ."

"Why tell you something we both know already?" was her answer.

"That's what I love about you Sofia, you are always ready with a boot to add to my self-depreciation."

"It's what I do," she replied.

"Tomorrow morning," I began. "We are going to Hod and Gerder's house and borrowing their dining table."

"Oh?" was Sofia's reply.

"And you will not pull that 'I'm not feeling very secure right now, do you think I'm pretty?' stunt with Hod. Got it?" I added. "I like Gerder and Hod. They were there when I needed help and I won't have you stirring a pot best left to simmer."

She sighed. "Fine!" she grumbled.

"Besides," I continued. "When you find out what I'm going to do, you'll be more than adequately compensated for your taste in causing trouble."

"You owe me then," was her answer.

Next morning, more negotiations with Lucan and more conversations with Camilla who was clearly approaching flirtation mode with me. Sofia naturally was getting hostile which I was more than happy to allow. After all, Sofia was the girl I wanted, and if by provoking a little jealousy by not entirely discouraging Camilla I could get Sofia to be more honest with herself about why she was tagging along with me, I would wink a few times to a fellow Imperial.

But I had what I wanted at the end of the hour's exchange. Septims from the loot, as well as paper, quill pens, and ink. And from there is was off to Hod's house after clearing it with Gerdur. I didn't want Sven seeing me writing and making good leaps of logic.

"There's nothing to drink in this house," was Sofia's observation. "How do you expect me to sit at this table and drink nothing.

"Because I need you to write two letters and sign them as if they were from Camilla. If this is going to work, the first pair of letters needs to be in a feminine hand. And yours are the best hands I have for the job."

"Okay," asked Sofia, "What am I supposed to write."

"The first letter is going to be along these lines . . ." I began. "Dearest darling Faendal, I received a horrible letter from Sven and I wish to talk with you privately about it behind the lumber mill this evening shortly after sunset. I fear Sven might be alert to my feelings about him and if he shows up, you'll know what to do to him. I remain your one true love, Camilla."

"So you're going to pick Faendal?" was Sofia's query.

"The next letter is going like this," I replied with a very devious smile. "Dearest darling Sven. I received a horrible letter from Faendal and I wish to talk with you privately about it behind the lumber mill this evening shortly after sunset. I fear Faendal might be alert to my feelings about him and if he shows up, you'll know what to do with him. I remain your one true love, Camilla."

Sofia began to grin and she began to write the letters. In the meantime, I wrote a pair of letters as well. These were addressed to Camilla and were signed by Sven and Faendal respectively.

Once the letters were sealed, I delivered my two to Camilla by slipping them under the door of the Riverwood Trader. The first shortly after noon, and the second a few hours later. Sofia of course delivered the other two letters respectively to Sven and Faendal, by means of the same trick, so no one saw us deliver the letters directly. Then as the sun was beginning to think of setting, we set out to the Riverwood Traders, took Camilla and Lucan over to the Inn for dinner, and as Lucan and I chatted of shoes, ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, Sofia took Camilla for a walk which ended, rather deliberately, behind the lumber mill just a few moments after 'shortly after' sunset.

Sofia returned with a big grin on her face and a persistent fit of the giggles which came on at random intervals. But the next day we were too busy dealing with the last of the barrow and securing the dragon stone, which came not at all easily. But the strangest thing that happened was this curious wall which had a glowing symbol or word upon it of which I somehow knew to be the sound, Fus. Sofia just sort of stared at me over that with her front teeth biting her lower lip. As for me? I shrugged and and we found a way out of the barrow which involved a bit of climbing down a cliff side before we headed back to Riverwood. So we did not speak much of the incident.

As we unloaded the last of our loot for Lucan, Camilla looked at me with a certain melancholy. I could tell she was a bit depressed. For a moment I regretted what I had done, but then I reminded myself of why I had done it.

"Don't be a stranger now," she suggested. And Sofia, much to the beating of my little heart, put her arm around my arm and gave Camilla a 'mine' gesture. Camilla returned a glance to Sofia which seemed to be something of a challenge and I felt rather smug I'll admit.

We headed back towards Whiterun, with septims in our pockets and a dragon stone in my backpack.

"So just what was in those two letters you wrote?" asked Sofia once we were safely out of the hearing range of the citizens of Riverwood. "And why did you do it the way you did? I mean you should have seen the look on Camilla's face when we came around the lumber mill and saw them wrestling on the ground trying to beat each other up. It was a scream. But what she said to them? She said they were sick and twisted and I don't understand that at all."

"That was the idea," I said. "You see? I think that if you are trying to woo a woman's love you should do it by telling her why you are the ideal for her. Not by tearing down your rival. Especially in such a mean and vindictive manner. All is fair in love and war? Screw that. Be honest about yourself and your feelings for the other and let them make the right choice. Faendal is a good archer and would be a great provider. He needed to press his suit by showing Camilla those good points of his. Sven is a Bard and a poet, the sort that could sing love songs to Camilla all his life. She had two really great choices and if the two men had been gentlemen about it, I never would have done what I did."

"Which was?" asked Sofia.

"My letters suggested they were ending their relationship with Camilla because they had found true love," I pause for the sheer drama of it all. "In each other."

Sofia took a moment to lean against a tree and hoot in hysterics.

"I'm glad you approve," I offered.

"We make a great couple," suggested Sofia.

Three . . . Two . . . One . . .

"I Mean TEAM!" she clarified.

"If you say so," I sighed. She still wasn't being honest with herself. Oh well. It was off to Whiterun with a Dragon stone for Farengar. From there, I planned to head to Solitude and connect with the Bard's College there. New instruments, and perhaps some acknowledgement of my talents. And next to me was a beautiful woman who was beginning to appreciate me. Life was good and things were sure to look up.

Yeah, I was a naive fool to think that.


	4. Chapter 4 - A Song For the Brave

"There's no sign of a dragon but it sure looks like he's been there," said Irileth.

We were a few miles out of Whiterun, overlooking the western watch tower which observed the road which ran from Markarth. That tower had several holes in it, and not a few fires around it.

"Spread out and look for survivors," continued Irileth. She was a Dunmer, a dark elf, with stern features and an almost fanatic determination to protect Jarl Balgruuf from any possible threat. Our introduction slightly over a week before had been with her holding a drawn sword directed at my heart and while we were on speaking terms, she left no doubt that she would hack my head off if she thought it necessary.

Of course, the Jarl of Whiterun was not here. It was just me, Sofia, Irileth, and four guards from Whiterun who had greeted the opportunity to engage in a dragon fight with the phrase "We are so dead."

That's what I like about the Nords, they are so upbeat when they are sober.

I stole a glance at Sofia. She had, as per her usual custom, gotten drunk the night before in the Bannered Mare and had managed to lose her clothing in various spots around the inn. I spent a few hours tracking the articles down since I didn't have the time to make her new stuff because I had planned on getting on this very road I was standing on, earlier this morning so I might take the right turn and follow it through Rorikstead, through Dragon Bridge, and on to Solitude and the Bard's College. But just as Farengar had talked about how the work of the mind was to begin and show the dragon stone to a woman in leather armor and leather hood who looked rather familiar, though I could not place the face, Irileth had walked in and called us up to the Jarl's upper chamber where I was addressed as his friend and sent off to face this new dragon because . . . get this . . . I had experience fighting dragons.

Now where he got that idea from I need to explain. Sofia had been more than adept at insisting that the big black spiny I had been busy running from in Helgen had in fact been running from me. This was of course last night when she had been in her underwear chatting with six or twenty guardsmen. I really wasn't counting and there were a lot of them and I couldn't just stop my lute playing and walk over and extract her from her fan club. I was contracted for three hours, and for that me and Sofia would get the only room in the inn, and Sofia had managed to undress in the first sixty minutes of the gig.

Apparently word of my exploits had gotten back to the Jarl. He knew I had been in Helgen, and he knew I had been on the block when the dragon had arrived. But he had not known that I had 'driven the dragon off' before I had left for Riverwood. While I had not been entirely honest with him by admitting that I had been chiefly concerned in looking for places to hide when the that winged horror had flown in. I had likewise not been dishonest by suggesting that I had actually fought the dragon. On that topic I had remained a respectful 'humble' silence. Not that the Jarl had pressed the matter, he was too busy arguing with Proventius over whether or not to send a detachment to Riverwood. But all that was before we had returned with the dragon stone and 'destroyed that massively dangerous drauger' at least according to Sofia. From my perspective, I would have been dead without her assistance since she had, as per usual, faced the creature directly while I incinerated it from the side.

I wasn't sure what Sofia was planning in regards to the possible arrival of a dragon. She had, once she had found out we were being sent out to fight a dragon, asked me if I was actually crazy enough to be considering it. I supposed I could have reminded her that if she had not been telling the guards a pack of lies while sitting there in the smallest pair of underclothes I had ever seen a woman in . . . Well I'll be frank, before Sofia I had never seen a woman in any underclothes save my mother and that was before I turned four and the memory is more than a little hazy.

So here I was, standing near the tower, walking rather cautiously towards it with these four guards giving me the 'only you can save us' looks which I found rather disconcerting, not to mention embarrassing should that dragon come up and attack. Now I had a Hunter's Bow and iron tipped arrows. I had no magical means to fire bolts at something like a dragon, but conversely, I didn't want to be in the dragon's line of sight either should he come around. And the more I looked about, the more it looked like he had already come around and what was there to stop him from coming back? Especially when I was looking at a charred humanoid figure which had, I suspected, been a walking living loving happy Nord just a few hours prior. My plan was simple. Find a spot that the dragon was not looking at, and shoot arrows at him until either the dragon had left, or died by someone else's hand.

Cowardice you say? No Cowardice is when you run away entirely. I was in no shape to kill a dragon and I knew I was in no shape to kill a dragon so I was going to be on the side rather than in that dragon's flame breath. What's the point of dying to prove you are brave?

I paused and looked at Sofia. She was simply scanning around. There was a frown on her forehead, no doubt the result of that hangover she had gotten upon waking up earlier this morning, nearly naked, on the bed, while I was sitting in a chair next to her, clearly capable of seeing every bit of her feminine qualities. She had not been appreciative and I had smiled and replied if she was going to toss her garments while intoxicated in seven or eight different spots in the inn and make a spectacle of herself for the rest of the town's male population, I saw no reason why to not exclude myself of the view. She had, of course, no answer for that other than her usual accusations that I was a pervert where upon I pointed out that I had first, not gotten into bed with her; second, retrieved her clothing for her donning; third, remained fully dressed the entire time; and fourth, she made no secret of the fact that she liked being admired by guys and I was only trying to make her happy. She pondered that while she was pulling her skirt up and boots on. She rightly suspected there was sarcasm hidden in that reply somewhere. Which does much to explain why there was no expression of gratitude forthcoming. Not that I found this surprising.

"No, get back!" shouted a guard looking out of the tower. He was not one of the one's who had come with us. "It's still here somewhere! Hroki and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it."

"Guardsman! What happened here? Where's the dragon? Quickly now!" asked Irileth and I began to look about.

As luck would have it, I was looking south when the creature came out of the clouds.

"Kynareth save us, here he comes again . . ." was what the guard said.

Talos that creature was huge. Seriously huge. It's head was as big as my entire body.

"Find cover!" shouted Irileth. "And make every arrow count."

It's nice when the military command approves of your planned tactics.

The dragon landed on the south side of the tower and proceeded to work on incinerating the guardsmen there. I dashed around the tower on my right to reach the side and took aim.

And the dragon was air-born before my arrow got halfway there. I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be one of those days.

"So you're going to face me?" shouted Sofia to the dragon who was honing in on her. "At least you'll die with a great view! I am of course referring to my face and possibly other feminine attributes. The last guy who faced me was stiff before he was cold, or at least part of him was."

The dragon was entirely focused on Sofia now and I was running as fast as I could to get a shot in. And I did. I actually got a shot off. And it even hit. And there it was, stuck on a back spine, three inches of the back. Hurting the dragon not a little bit. In fact not hurting the dragon at all.

And then it engulfed Sofia in flames and I was shooting and loading as fast as I could. Sofia however leapt up and putting her foot on the nose of the dragon, vaulted onto the top of his head. And then jumped off to the side while two of the guardsmen with Irileth charged forward.

I was in range. Holding the bow in my right hand I let the fire burst from my left hand and painted the dragon's left front leg with it. I was amazed at how little damage seemed to be produced. I felt terribly disempowered.

"Fall to me Dragon!" shouted one of the guards.

"You still trying to fight a woman? You know you're going to die. We never fight by the rules!" shouted Sofia.

This wasn't just braggadocio on Sofia's part. Though a case could be made that she was trying to make it so. The simple fact is that women who win on the battle field do so because they fight like women and not like men. If the girl thinks she has to don the heavy armor and the heavy shield and swing the heavy sword, she'll be dead the moment she faces a guy who has the same number of training hours she has. Simply put, a woman's strength is in her legs and hips not her arms and shoulders. A woman who moves, strikes, moves, and spends her strength keeping mobile and ducking will prove more than a match for a tank who is used to simply chopping down anything in front of him. Sofia understood that. She might be facing you for a second, but that was only to put the fire into your face before she stepped to the side and planted the dagger.

And that was my problem too you see. Because I was a mage, because I was on the flank. I too had to fight 'like a woman' and of course I wasn't half as graceful as Sofia was. She was poetry in motion. My strength was in my fire, and that dragon was acting like I was merely keeping him warm on a cold Skyrim morning. Not that I begrudged the fact that he regarded me as 'not a threat'. Well okay I did begrudge him that. It was in a very real sense humiliating. But I was not so stupid as to face him directly knowing that one bite would have neatly severed me into two equal parts.

"I am Mirmulnir!" shouted the dragon. "And I had forgotten what sport you mortals are!"

"I'll Kill You!" shouted Irileth.

Mirmulnir dove, knocked Irileth to the side and swung his tail at Sofia. She ducked and the tail grazed her while I dashed in 'to the rescue'. Silly of me I know. Like I was going to really impact that beast?

"Oh! I think I broke a nail!" cried Sofia.

Yeah, I was really feeling adequate right about them.

"Nerevar guide me!" cried Irileth.

Mirmulnir once again landed, rather clumsily I noted. His body was covered in blood and half penetrated arrows. It suddenly dawned on me that while not one single arrow had done much damage, he had been hit by dozens of them and all those wounds were bleeding him out. I was tired of feeling like I didn't matter. I dove in and let loose with the flames while the five remaining guards, Irileth, and Sofia closed in firing their bows.

For one second Mirmulnir faced me. And then he cried "Dovahkiin? No!"

And then he died.

OH COME ON!

Seriously now. Everyone else had done far more to kill that dragon than me. But because he had looked at me and said no, everyone was looking at me like I had killed the beast and they had merely helped by being the distraction.

"Let's make sure that overgrown lizard is really dead," suggested Irileth from behind me on my left.

I had never seen a dragon before, and this was my chance to get up close to the beast and make out the details. But . . . But the dragon was spontaneously combusting.

"Get back!" cried Irileth.

But I couldn't. The dragon was entirely engulfed in flame now and something in that dragon was trying to get away, I could feel it's struggles while at the same time there was a blowing wind and white power swirling around me and this horrible feeling of loss and despair and . . . power.

And that word from that great stone wall came back to my head and it seemed that I needed to say it.

"FUS!"

It was like it just came out. The fire which was covering the dragon yielded to it and the smoke scattered before it and the bones just flew and there I was. Standing before a skeleton and everyone was looking at me like mighty Talos himself had just come down and asked for my autograph.

"I can't believe it!" cried one of the guards. "You're . . . Dragonborn!"

"Dragonborn?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"In the very oldest days, back when there were still dragons in Skyrim, the Dragonborns would slay dragons and steal their power. And that's what you did isn't it? Absorbed that dragon's power?"

"I don't know what happened to me," I observed. And that was quite true.

"Well, you can shout now. You couldn't before, right? That can only mean one thing. You must be Dragonborn."

"Dragonborn?" queried another guard. "What are you talking about?"

Yeah, what he said. What ARE you talking about?

"That's right," observed another guard. "My grandfather used to tell stories of the Dragonborn.

I stole a peek at Sofia. She was looking at me with a mixture of awe, amazement, and "Well of course I picked him to pal around with" expression. I couldn't help but suspect that within a moment or two she would have convinced herself that the reason why this was happening to me was because she had decided to join me. Just the same, I was feeling like I really had a chance at romance with this girl now.

"Those born with the Dragon Blood in 'em, like old Tiber Septim himself."

Tiber Septim? I was suddenly hit sideways with a gold brick wrapped around an iron crowbar nailed to a chunk of granite. Metaphorically speaking of course.

"I never heard of Tiber Septim killing any dragons," replied another guard.

"There weren't any dragons then, idiot. They're just coming back now for the first time in . . . forever!"

I wasn't entirely aware of the conversation that was swirling about me. I was still punch drunk over the fact that the Septim line had Dragonborn in it. My ancient ancestry was coming back to give me a big boon in the middle of my reconciling myself to the fact that I would be no one of importance in my life. And I wasn't at all okay with this sudden derailment of my life's plans. After all that effort to reconcile myself to the fact that I would remain inconspicuous and obscure for the rest of what ever lifespan was to be given to me, to be suddenly thrust into greatness was not a little irritating. It's like you spent the entire spring planing apple seeds in order to feed the world only to discover that the world was allergic to apple sauce.

"But the old tales tell of the Dragonborn who could kill dragons and steal their power. You must be one!"

"What do you say Irileth? You're being awfully quiet," was another guard's comment.

"Come on Irileth," added another guard. "Tell us. Do you believe in this Dragonborn business?"

Irileth snorted. "Some of you would be better off keeping quiet than flapping your gums over something you don't know anything about." She gestured to the skeletal remains of Mirmulnir. "Here's a dead dragon," she continued. "And that's something I definitely understand. Now we know we can kill them. But I don't need some mythical Dragonborn. Someone who can put down a dragon is more than enough for me."

"You wouldn't understand, House Carl," replied the first guardsman. The one who 'believed in me'. "You ain't a Nord."

"I've been all across Tamriel," retorted Irileth. "I've seen plenty of things just as outlandish as this. I'd advise all of you to trust in the strength of your sword arm over tales and legends."

Irileth turned to me and looked at me for a moment.

"I'm taking command here for the moment," she said. "You head back to Whiterun and let the Jarl know what happened."

I nodded and headed back towards the city. Sofia fell in beside me. I stole a peek at her and she glanced back at me and smiled just a little.

"You're going to fall flat on your face again," she observed.

"And you'll laugh," I replied looking forward.

"Of course," she replied.

"Sofia?" I started "Admit it girl, you like me."

"You're fun to adventure with," she replied.

"That isn't what I meant," I retorted. I worked up my nerve and then turned to face her. I started to stammer but I pushed forward. "What I mean is . . . It's like . . . You and me . . . We could be . . .You know what I mean. . . . I hear it from your lips all the time . . . You just won't . . ."

And there was a crack of thunder, the earth seemed to shake beneath my feet and this cry came out of the sky to the south and east, seeming to come from the mountain they called The Throat of the World and there were words in that crack of thunder. There were voices in the shaking earth.

"Doh . . . Vah . . . Kiin!"

And there was another crack of thunder.

Sofia looked towards the mountain. Part of me was cursing that sudden interruption and the other part of me was pointedly observing that I was making a jackass of myself trying to suggest that we could fall in love now.

"You know," she observed looking back at me. "If you're Dragonborn, we're going to be rich. We had nothing when we started together, just a single pair of clothes. Not that it's how much money you have you know. It's always been how much of it you spent on me."

Okay, that really put a complete damper on the mood if you know what I mean. I looked back at her. And for a moment gazed upon that deep black thick hair which rested upon her shoulders in that long curly pony tail. I looked at those big soulful eyes and that cute little button nose with that sprinkling of freckles. If only she had been missing that mouth of hers.

"It's a joke? But . . . a piece of jewelry, you know? Like a necklace? Wouldn't be bad," she suggested.

"And you know I'll get it for you," I sighed.

"Yes," she said with more than a little certitude. "I do."

I walked on in silence.

"I have to look the part you know," she insisted. "We're going to be legends now."

And then she sang out "The Legendary Duo."

I paused and looked at her. It had only been three words, but it was one of those deep, rich, and full alto voices which only come naturally to a handful of women.

"Sofia!" I said, partially as an accusation. "I didn't know you could sing."

"You didn't ask," she replied.

"I've only been playing at the Bannered Mare and the Sleeping Giant how many nights since you joined me?" I shot back.

"I've been busy relaxing!" she insisted.

"Getting drunk, flirting with everyone _except me_, and losing your clothes," I replied with a slight increase in volume.

"I don't lose my clothes!" she argued back.

"So why do you keep waking up naked with me in the room?"

"And then I put them back on so I haven't lost them!"

"It's because I collected them first!"

"Which means I didn't lose them does it?"

"You shouldn't be taking them off in the first place!"

"It's not like I do it every single time I party!" she argued.

"No, only every second Sundas!" I snapped. "But it shouldn't be AT ALL!"

"Then why do you sit there in the room watching me sleep when I'm naked?"

"Because we can only afford one room! That's why you get to sleep under the covers and I sleep on top of them! And given every other male in the town of Whiterun or Riverwood is aware of what you look like naked and that doesn't bother you, why would it bother you that I know too?"

"Don't you dare be rational with me while I'm yelling at you!"

"I'll be rational when ever I like!"

She was leaning forward, her fists clenched and at her sides, and her feet stomping on the cobblestones of the road. I simply walked along beside her, somewhat smug since I had won that argument. But of course she didn't look pretty when she was angry, and in the middle of this I became afraid I would lose her. She would walk off and hop into someone else's bed . . . Not that she had been in my bed in the sense of being in bed. I wasn't even aware if she had made love to another guy. I mean you would think she had, given how frequently she got drunk and flirted with guys in order to persuade them to buy her drinks. When a girl's drinking is coupled with a mathematically set of definable odds that she'll lose her clothes at some point in the process, you can't help but suspect that there's been a certain loss of sexual innocence, and what's more, self-respect. And then I began to wonder if after one of those little games she had played, she had woken up naked in a bed with no memory of how she had gotten there. And realizing there was a bit of soreness and goop between her legs, she knew she had been taken and left like an old discarded rag doll. And that was the reason why she was being distant with me.

Seriously now. She had tracked me down. She had followed me for some period of time before I had even known she existed. I had never seen her but she had seen me and pegged me for her companion. And she had vehemently denied it persistently since. What else could be the reason for that "I want to be with you forever but only as friends where I'm in compete control at all times and you depend on me and not the other way around" attitude she was projecting? What was she afraid of?

How to say your sorry when you're not but you want to make up . . .

"Sofia?" "What!"

"I really depend on you. You know that don't you?"

"Yes!"

"Tomorrow, after we get up. After we've talked with the Jarl and caught him up on things. We'll go to Solitude. You and me. We'll join the Bard's college. We'll study music together. We'll then tour all of Tamriel and sing duets. We'll be famous. We'll sing for the Emperor Titus. Would you like that?"

"Maybe?"

I leaned over and gave her a one armed hug. Her muscles tensed, but she leaned in. Her arms remained at her side, but her head leaned against my shoulder for a second. Then I let go and she fell back into step.

"I wish you were my wife," I sighed. "Then I would not have to worry you would move on at some point."

I tried to catch a peak out of the corner of my eye to see what she was doing. She was trying not to look at me with a wistful expression on her face.

It was going to take time. That much was for certain. I suspected that once upon a time, she had been hurt real bad.

And for the first time since I had entered Skyrim, I wasn't being a naive fool.


	5. Chapter 5 - A Song For The College

"I so love taking it from behind," came Sofia's whisper. "I mean . . ."

We were in a dark and dingy cave. There were at least three drauger up ahead of us. There had been more than a few traps we had avoided behind us, and there was this ghost which kept calling us forward, causing me wonder which sort of ghost it was, the sort who wanted us to follow it so we might finish some unfulfilled task it had died trying to accomplish, or the sort that was leading us to our doom. And in the middle of this, while we are trying to be stealthy, crouched down so far as to put serious torc on the kneecaps, Sofia just had to make a comment on our attack tactics in such a fashion that suggested . . . well I don't think I need to explain any further. I quietly turned around and stared at her.

"I'll just be quiet now," she suggested.

"You do that," I mouthed in reply.

We crept forward for about five feet. I raised my bow to hit that drauger in the head and hopefully put him out before the other two were aware we were there.

"Crouched down like this, if you cut one now you can forget me helping you . . ." came her quiet, but still over intense whisper.

I nearly shot wild. But keeping calm I untensed the bow while keeping my fingers on the arrow and looked at her again.

"Must you?" I whispered as quietly as I could.

"Sorry," she replied. And for the first time I think since we had started adventuring together, she actually blushed.

I once again pulled back the bow. It was one of those Imperial composite designs which I had reinforced with a few steel strips and special glue. I took a deep breath, held it, and mentally guided the arrow so that the tip was pointing just above the top of the drauger. Drauger are pretty much northern zombies, but unlike zombies, they are not in a state of rot. They seem to be able to just hold themselves together while shriveling up. It makes them rather flammable, but they take a while to burn. Hitting them with fire bolts, a new spell I had learned, was not the preferred first strike. A good solid bowshot did way more damage since they didn't see it coming and arrows had more penetration power than my fire bolts.

The arrow silently sped from the bow, heading for it's target smooth and soft, just as the drauger turned and took a step to the left. The arrow of course hit the wall with an audible snap and the drauger immediately faced us. I was ready to scream. The three of them naturally all charged in unison and I stood up and stepped back since I needed Sofia in front to cover my spell casting.

"So, you think you can act like you have a set of items I know rotted off a long time ago?" came Sofia's challenge to the Drauger. "And here I am, right in front of you, and you lacking the equipment . . ."

I'm not sure if drauger care about that sort of thing but Sofia seemed to take a certain perverse pleasure in mocking the dead in this fashion as she warded against drauger strikes with one hand and stabbed with the other and I filled their faces with flames. I couldn't help but be jealous of her warding talents. The ward is a spell which unleashes a magical shield in front of a person which acts to block both physical and magical bolts and strikes. The problem is that it's a serious drain on the magicka and likewise, isn't as strong when it's put up as it is when it's been running for a few seconds. I simply never could get the timing right on it. So I preferred oak-flesh and flames.

"Talos!" I screamed and cupped my hands together so that I could increase the lethality. This was of course, Sofia's cue to stand in the way.

"Why in oblivion do you think I shout these things!" I screamed at her while I tried to adjust so I might get a clear shot.

"If you were looking at the drauger and not my backside maybe you wouldn't need to yell about me blocking your way!" she shot back.

The drauger merely made those rattly grunts and kept attacking. I slid to the left and got a good five second blast into one of them which was sufficient to cut it's combat capacity down a bit.

"If I were looking at your backside I wouldn't be looking at the enemy!" I retorted. I needed to gulp down a magicka potion as I had run out of magical energy.

"Are you saying my hips are too wide?" she accusingly queried.

I unleashed more flame and one of the drauger dropped. Two to go.

"If you are so worried about your hips being too wide!" I yelled, letting a spell loose that sent one of the drauger running for the hills, leaving us with just one to deal with for the moment. " . . . Then stick your hips in the way of that drauger's axe. He'll cut them down to size in no time!"

"You do think they're too wide don't you!" she shrieked as she kicked the last drauger in the stomach and then blasted it's face off with an ice bolt.

Now that we were somewhat safe, I swatted the backside of said hips with the flat of my hand.

"Only you would be worried about your weight in the middle of a life or death struggle," I suggested in a rather annoyed tone.

"You didn't answer the question!" she accused. You will note, she had apparently no objection to the swat I had placed upon them the seconds prior. I saw that as an encouraging sign.

"And I refuse to," I replied. "You'll just wait on what I think of your hips proportions after we find the poem for the college."

Since the gentle reader is no doubt somewhat unfamiliar with Skyrim, I had best explain where we were and why we were arguing over Sofia's hip measurements in the middle of a fight with the walking dead.

The cry of Dohvakiin from the sky had turned out to be the Greybeards summoning me to a monastery on the top of the Throat of the World which was known as High Hrothgar. The Greybeards were not a pack of dirty creepy old men in ratty robes and scruffy beards as was Sofia's description of them. They were in fact, monks who had mastered the way of the voice, that shouting thing I had done right after Mirmulnar had been killed by everyone . . . except me of course. This summons was explained to my by the Jarl himself, who then named me Thane of Whiterun and assigned me a personal house-carl, a woman named Lydia whom Sofia took an immediate dislike to prior to us even meeting her. Needless to say, wisdom dictated that I assign Lydia to managing my affairs (and spare change) in Whiterun while I remained away from Whiterun. Sofia really was keen on me shouting Lydia off of a cliff at the top of The Throat of the World. And the joke was, Lydia wasn't even remotely as attractive as Sofia. The woman was seriously butch and I didn't care for that. Sofia on the other hand was soft and girly and cuddly . . . Well in my dreams anyway. Reality had a nasty habit of dashing those on a regular basis.

So it was off to High Hrothgar. The trip was known as climbing the 7,000 steps in poetic language. Climbing a thin, treacherous, and slippery mountain trail while killing several wolves, a bear, two frostbite spiders and a rather annoying winter troll in a blizzard in more mundane language. There's a filthy rumor which is circulating that it's not 7,000, but closer to 700. The rumor is true. So spread it around will you?

Upon arriving, having read the ten meditative plaques upon the spiritual way, I had been rewarded with Kynareth's special blessing, known as The Voice of the Sky, which had the delightful attribute of making all the animals like me and not want to eat me any more. This lasted until I had forgotten briefly about it and stomped on a small frostbite spider who was crawling towards our bed in the inn where were were sleeping just a few nights later. Mother Nature came back at me with a vengeance afterwards. In High Hrothgar, I was given a few more words to shout with and send off to find the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller.

Well the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller was in a crypt north of High Hrothgar, and south of Solitude, so it made sense to go into that crypt (it's ALWAYS a crypt), retrieve the horn, and then go on to Solitude and connect with the Bard College, which had been my plan from the moment I had tried to set foot in Skyrim way back when. That was of course, before I was taken in an Imperial ambush, nearly had my head chopped off, met Sofia, gotten the Dragonstone, fired a few spells at the Dragon Mirmulnir, been made Thane of Whiterun . . . Okay you should be caught up by now.

It was a most dramatic moment when I retrieved the horn, these massive menhirs made of iron had risen out of the water on either side of the causeway as I had approached the raised palm upon which the horn was supposed to reside. This was of course after killing another pile of undead and getting into an argument with Sofia over the number and quality of arrows I had been giving her. She said I was keeping all the good ones to myself. Her accusation was true but I was in no mood to be honest and fair about it at the time as I had just been the recipient of a very nasty hack in the thigh from a drauger battle axe and the healing had taken up so much magicka I was out of magicka potions afterwards.

Yes, the horn, I was getting to that. There it was, that palm which was supposed to be holding the horn on the top of this great stone altar with bowing figures all around it and that sort of thing . . . Only there was no horn. There was . . . You ready? A piece of paper. A note.

"Why couldn't they have stuck that note on the door in front of the crypt so we didn't have to dash through those slamming doors, work our way around those flaming floor tiles, get shot at by all those skeletons, and . . ." was Sofia's groan.

"Welcome to my life," I had replied.

So no horn, just a note which told me to rent the attic room at the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood.

"But there IS no attic at that inn!" was Sofia's immediate observation. "How in oblivion are we supposed to rent a room that doesn't exist? When I find the jerk who did this they are so getting their lights punched out!"

There was that ghost again, leading us on through a few more death traps, one of which would have assured my demise if Sofia had not been right behind me when the bars came down and closed us off with six drauger to keep us company. That was one hairy fight and when the last of them was dead, I paused to catch my breath and looked right at her. She looked back at me quizzically and then I put my arms on her shoulders, pulled her in, and got my first kiss.

It would have been nice to say that somewhere fireworks went off, we floated into the air, a chorus of women sang a melodic aria, and she sighed sweetly and fell into my arms giggling with delight.

But it didn't.

"You saved my life right now," I said.

"So you're excused," she replied. "But if you think what I think you're thinking then think again."

She backed off and turned her back on me. I remained buoyantly optimistic simply because she had not only let me kiss her, she had actually closed her eyes upon the receipt and had opened her mouth upon lip contact. She obviously knew about kissing, more than me actually. I had only read about this stuff. Just the same, had I been a bit younger, my heart might have been crushed by the sudden snub. But it was so in her character that I was more surprised at the brief enthusiasm of her receiving my kiss than I was her sudden chill afterwards.

There was a shaft we were going to have to jump down. There was water at the bottom. I had determined that by dropping a flaming torch down it first to see what we could expect. The ghost had led us here, so that was the way we had to take, not that we had any more options.

"You know," I said, feeling somewhat impish. "One of these nights you're going to get drunk, I'm going to pick you up in the middle of it, take you to my bed, make mad passionate love to you, and wake up with you in my arms the next morning and what will you do then?"

"Punch you," she replied.

"And what will you do when I simply make love to you again afterwards?" I queried.

"I'll punch you again, and maybe kick you too," she replied with hardly a bit of indignant huff in her tone.

"Sofia, listen to yourself. You're only threatening retaliation after I've done the deed. Especially when you could easily burn my face off before I could ever get close enough to actually do it. Why don't you just admit that you like me and that's why you've been tagging along. You tracked me down you know. That's not the behavior of a girl who's idea is to help out her fellow man, that's the behavior of a girl who has a crush on a guy."

"You can jump into that shaft right now, and get good and soaked with all that cold water, or I can push you in," she suggested. "One . . . Two . . ."

I leapt. I knew when she got to three she would start to push and while I kind of liked the idea of a wrestling match, to engaged in a contest in front of a very deep hole filled with water and stone sides was not the best place for such athletics.

The water was a good twenty feet deep and there was a tunnel leading out at the surface, mostly. I shouted this stuff up to Sofia. She promptly shouted "Yippee! I love leaping to my doom!" and came down into the water.

From there it was a few more tunnels and then finally, at the bottom of a shaft, there was the desiccated and very old corpse of the Bard Svaknir holding a book. The ghost was sitting by the corpse looking at the book. I took it. The ghost rose and began to head back but towards a magically sealed barrier. His posture suggested an invitation to come along. We followed because now we knew why the ghost had lead us on.

Needless to say, had I not suspected, I might have concluded that while this ghost was anxious to return this part of the poetic edda to the living of Skyrim, he was mischievous enough to employ death traps in order to feel like we had accomplished something. But I was convinced by this point that the ghost was Svaknir himself determined to have his final vengeance against the King who had crushed him. So there was one last big fight which required me to spend a lot of time on a post above the dead man's court chamber firing off arrows at all the drauger who stood up from their side thrones since I quickly ran out of magicka.

"Arise Olaf!" cried the ghost Svaknir.

"Insolent boy!" retorted the drauger who was King Olaf.

"They say actions speak louder than words," quipped Sofia. "So I'll let my weapons do the talking."

The fight with Olaf lasted a good ten minutes, or so it seemed. I swear I shot fifty arrows into that creature. I drained my magicka away three times, and then fired my bow while it recovered. As per custom, I was mostly plugging away from behind while Olaf paid mostly attention to the ghost, which I did not begrudge since the ghost was not getting particularly hurt by that big blade Olaf was wielding, being composed of ectoplasm and all.

The drauger who was Olaf finally fell, Svaknir pulled out his lute and silently began to play as he faded into Aetheirus and Sovengard. As for Sofia, she busied herself with tidying up the place, which consisted of picking up all the valuable items in the massive throne room crypt and storing them neatly in our backpacks.

"That's what I love about you," I quipped. "You're so domestic."

She stuck her tongue out at me.

There was a side passage which took us back to the front of Dead Man's Respite and we were able to exit the crypt. There was a natural alcove and stone porch which fronted the crypt, and this seemed the perfect spot to camp for the night as the stars were out and above us the northern lights were all white and pale green. Below the porch a few hundred feet down the hill was the Hjal river rushing by.

"We'll build a fire here," I said.

"Can't we . . ." began Sofia who hated camping out when she was sure there was a tavern nearby.

"No, we can't," I replied. "We're equal distances from Solitude and Morthal, and we've never been to Morthal so we would have no idea what we'd find there."

"Dragonbridge has an inn," argued Sofia.

"Even more out of the way," I replied. "To get to Solitude we swim, not walk all the way back to Dragonsbridge and then turn around and walk back."

"I hate camping in front of crypts!" shouted Sofia.

"You hate camping . . . period," I replied. "But I have a surprise for you so just sit tight."

"I could get used to that," she admitted.

Shortly thereafter, I had a nice fire going, started with the local brush and scrub which was growing outside the crypt, and fueled with the remains of drauger from inside the crypt. I told you they burned well. And then I gave Sofia her surprise, three bottles of Black Briar Reserve Mead which I had slipped into a side pocket of my backpack when she had not been looking.

"I feel really creepy knowing I'm being kept warm by dead drauger," observed Sofia shortly thereafter. Then she held out her mug for another refill. "I will be needing more drinks to get over it."

"Naturally," I said.

She looked at me for a moment.

"I'm feeling really grungy now, and you're looking really grungy. I'm going down to the river to get totally washed off, me and my clothes. You should join me."

I looked at her waiting for the clarification.

"I MEAN APART!"

Right on cue.

I sent her on ahead and shortly thereafter I could hear her calling me down. When I got down there she was in the river up to her neck, not getting out, and convinced her clothing had been washed down stream. I cast a light spell and found her clothing in a pile on top of a bush.

"Here it is," I said.

"Okay thanks," she said. "You can go now."

"You sure?" "Yes!"

"I mean I know you like it when guys admire you and I would be perfectly happy to admire you now while you're getting dressed, like the last time in Whiterun?"

"You are so going to be kicked when I get out of here."

"But I get to stay and admire you first right?"

Sofia screamed.

"What a lovely singing voice you have dear. Of course that group of big burly hunters a few hundred yards down the river from here might misinterpret your song and come a running to save the damsel in distress and then you'll have a whole pack of guys admiring you so you might as well . . ."

"Valentine please!"

"Ah the magic word. I must obey." And I left the light hovering above the clothes and walked back to the camp where I sat with my back to the river until she got back.

"So," she began as she came up from behind me now that she was fully dressed. "Where's that Black Briar?"

I gestured to the bottles which were by the pack.

"I'm done," she informed me. "So you can go down and get washed off too."

"I think I will," I said getting up and stretching while she helped herself to a bottle and began to fill her mug up. I turned and took three steps, heard the sound of a magical spell being cast that I had never heard before and . . .

All my clothes were gone and all that was on me was a bit of dispersing smoke.

Sofia was rolling on the ground laughing.

"I love that spell!" she screamed.

"I am going to get you for this!" I said turning around, not a little put out.

"Nice weapon," she quipped. "I might need two hands to wield it."

And of course I was too self conscious to do anything other than walk down to the river, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity. When I got back, Sofia was laying upon her fur rollup on her side with her back to me. There were my clothes, in a rather undignified pile by the fire. And all three bottles of Black Briar were empty. Not that I wasn't surprised at this.

I unrolled my fur and plopped down as well. She rolled onto her back.

"Where did you learn that spell?" I queried.

"During my brief stay at the college in Winterhold," was her reply. "One of the students figured it out and taught it to me. It was my idea of course. Which was why they kicked me out of the college and not him."

"Of course," I answered. I smiled, though I knew she could not see it. "You'll have to be careful casting that spell around me," I proceeded. "Or I'll figure it out and cast it back on you."

She was very quiet after that. At least until she started to snore.

I was awake before she was the next morning. But then again, I had one mug of mead, and she had five. I was looking at Svaknir's book. I have to describe her waking up because I had never seen something so cute in all my days. Of course those of you who have had women up to your eyebrows no doubt have seen this sort of thing a million times, latest girlfriend waking up ho hum, here's the part where she stretches and I get to see her breasts pushing against the fabric of her diaphanous top, no big deal yada yada yada. Well you'll have to excuse me because this was my first girlfriend (Well I liked to pretend she was anyway) and so this stuff was all really like, magical? She squinted first, wrinkling the skin around her nose a bit and her arms went a bit over her head and her eyelids fluttered open, she decided she wanted to keep them closed, she rolled over on her stomach and buried her head in the fluff part of the fur, and then looked cautiously up at me.

Had she at this juncture said, "Valentine would you kick that giant between the knees real hard because I don't like the grumbly noises he's making?" I would have dashed off to do it immediately completely oblivious to the certainty of death which would have followed courtesy of that giant's club.

Rather she said, "What are you looking at with that old book?"

"Trying to figure out why Viarmo thinks Elisif will let us burn King Olaf based on this," I replied.

"That sounds like you think it's bad," Sofia observed.

"Bard Svaknir had it coming," I answered. "If I had had to listen to this drivel in the court I would have shived him myself before King Olaf would have had the time. Fortunately most of it's decayed beyond readability.

"It can't be that bad," suggested Sofia, now curious enough to half wiggle half crawl towards me in a manner I found horribly sensual though she was just too sleepy to want to stand up and walk over.

I began to read.

"O, Olaf, our subjugator, the one-eye betrayer,  
>Death-dealing demon and dragon-killing King.<br>Your legend is lies, lurid and false;  
>Your cunning capture of Numinex, a con for the ages.<p>

Garble Garble GARble Garble Garble

Olaf grabbed power, by promise and threat;  
>From Falkreath to Winterhold, they fell to their knees;<br>But Solitude stood strong, Skyrim's truest protectors.  
>Olaf's vengeance was instant, inspired, and wicked.<p>

Garble Garble Garble Garbelle Garble

So ends the story of Olaf, the liar,  
>A thief and a scoundrel we of Solitude commit to the fire.<br>In Solitude bards train for their service,  
>They also gather each year and burn a King who deserves it."<p>

Sofia paused for a moment and seemed to think.

"You know," she observed. "When the garble garble garble part is the most moving part you read, you know it stinks."

"You think?" I queried.

"I know!" she observed with a brightening smile. "We'll propose we burn Svaknir instead! Every year people gather at Solitude and burn a Bard who deserves it. Catchy don't you think?"

"Probably fraught with potential for misunderstanding," I mused. "Who's the bard that gets burned this year sort of thing."

"Yeah," she agreed with a sigh.

For the next half an hour we were too busy packing up our camping gear and getting ready to head towards Solitude. We walked along in silence for a while by the river. The foot trail we were taking would link up with the road to Morthal and we could turn north from there. Or, if we were not in the mood to swim through ice cold water, we could turn right, follow the road to Dragonbridge, then turn left, and walk to Solitude. To be frank, I was planning on taking that route. An idea was forming in my mind and I was going to need the time.

"So what are you going to say to Viarmo?" she asked. "He's not going to be happy."

"It was a tragic accident," I replied.

"The book fell into our fire while we were drunk," observed Sofia. When it came to mischief, she could pick up the cues almost instantaneously.

"More tragic than that," I replied. "I refuse to destroy the historical legacy of Skyrim by being drunk."

"Why not? It's never bothered me," was her retort.

"The book crumpled into dust the moment the sunlight hit it," I observed. "But fortunately, I had read it through several times prior while we were still in the tomb finding our way out. It was that gripping. And because of that, I was able to memorize it."

"Oh . . . We just write a substitute . . . Then we can party afterwards?" Her sarcasm was almost palpable.

"Yep," I replied. So you do the first line."

"What?"

"You heard me. Come up with the first line. Oh, Olaf our subjugator . . . You know . . ."

"You're the court jester, not me," was her retort.

"You're the court jester not me, doesn't run proper," I replied. There's Fornyrthislag . . . Five or four syllables followed by four or five. Then there's Ljothahatter, Six with four, then four with six. And finally Malahatter, Five then Six . . . The Court Jester, to you belongs. That base career, I am not part. That's how you say it, you know?"

"No I don't know, damn it!"

"Oh all right, I'll do it . . . For a kiss."

"You are getting such a beating."

"Before or after the kiss?"

Sofia's response was inappropriate for mixed company and children.

I thought for a moment, then looked at her walking alongside of me.

"What do you think of this first line?" I said.

"Olaf subjugator, one eyed liar;  
>Death dealing thief, false dragon slayer;<br>Your legend is lies, lurid and base."

She was mentally counting out the syllables. "It works," she said.

"Of course it works," I replied. "I made a life out of learning the song styles of Tamriel. What do you think of the second line, the one about how Numenex's capture is a con for the ages?"

She paused and began to think. I smiled to myself. When it came down to it, she wanted to do stuff with me. The trick was to pull her in without drawing attention to herself.

"Worm Numinex, the great dragon;  
>You caught him not, for you were weak;<br>That is the lie, the false tale spun."

"Not bad," I suggested.

"So what really happened?" she asked.

"According to the history, Olaf did catch that dragon. That's the whole point of Dragon's Reach. So either Svaknir is denying the truth or a massive lie has manage to survive historical scrutiny."

"What do you think?" she asked.

"Svaknir's lying," I said with complete conviction. "I've seen Dragon's Reach. And I've seen dragons. A dragon could be held there."

"Then if he's lying, we don't have to worry about being accurate do we?" observed Sofia grinning. "How about this . . . Oh! I may need a mug of mead to figure this out right . . ."

I pulled a bottle out of my other secret stash. One needed a lot of drink if one was to keep Sofia happy. We took swigs as we passed it back and forth.

By foul magic, stolen at night;  
>Winterhold shaken, dragon takes flight;<br>Olaf has turned, transformed in stealth.

I paused . . . "I think this could be polished a bit . . ."

"Hey it's a great idea!" she argued. "Olaf was Numenex in dragon form."

"It is a good idea," I replied. "But we need to make that clearer. How about this?"

Olaf transforms, Numinex he is;  
>Winterhold spell, thieves in the night;<br>Skyrim stricken, a false dragon.

"I think my style was better," argued Sofia.

"I borrowed one line," I argued. "But here's another line to add.

Dragon's Reach act, before the people;  
>Skyrim's nobles, see the Dragon;<br>Olaf gains glory, laughs to himself.

"Needs work," she said.

"Such as?"

"Damn it you weren't supposed to say that," she grumbled.

"Have another swig of mead, Sofia."

"Okay, but only because you told me to."

"Olaf grabbed power, by promise false;  
>Threatened Skyrim, they are prostrate;<br>Solitude yet stands, Skyrim's fair guard.

Olaf's vengeance, instant and wicked;  
>Winterhold falls, fires cover her,<br>False orders given, switched by young fools.

The dragon rises, Olaf has come;  
>He burns and loots, destroys an ally;<br>True heroes hold, Bards sing of them.

So ends Olaf, liar and scoundrel,  
>We of Solitude, recall each year,<br>And burn the king, so deserving."

So we finished. Of course Sofia added several lines as she got into it, and the mead got into her. She started chanting it and dancing to the natural rhythms of it. By the time we got to Dragon's Bridge it was getting late and the sun was too low to hope to make it to Solitude by nightfall. Neither of us were liking traveling at night these days. We had already run into a pair of vampires and their dogs. There were rumors in the air of a secret war between vampires and a force known as The Dawnguard. Sofia had gotten infected, but I had a potion of cure diseases on me and she was able to recover. Even so I will confess I spent a lot of time by the hidden shrines to Talos in the woods around Skyrim for a few days begging for her safety.

As usual, I played for our supper and room. Sofia beat a drum alongside my lute and songs. She was getting adequate at the drum and so I insisted she join in. There were plenty of solo bards about, but a pair was something unique since we could bring not just two voices, but two instruments. I didn't want her singing yet. She had a great voice, but she kept getting the words mixed up.

We woke up the next morning, thanked the Innkeeper, and traveled towards Solitude while we practiced the poem as a duet. Once again I noticed that Sofia was getting into the performance bit of the affair. It was clear she liked the attention and if performing well would achieve that, well she would throw herself into it with enthusiasm.

Viarmo however, was not so enthusiastic. He was convinced that the Burning of King Olaf was doomed.

"Trust us!" I argued.

"As if you have a choice?" suggested Sofia. She had a point, but it was rude to express it at the present juncture.

Like a man walking to his execution, Viarmo headed for the Blue Palace with the two of us in tow.

"Maybe we should have just given him the book," suggested Sofia in a very quiet whisper who was now suffering from a combination of stage fright and conscious jitters.

I shook my head.

"It's better this way," I whispered back, putting my mouth as close to her hear as possible so my lips might brush her hair and ear. I admit it, I was pulling every stunt I could think of to maintain some form of physical contact with that woman. "I'm betting Jarl Elisif will love it."

And she did too. We recited the poem in the form of a duet. Each of us citing specific lines as I had rehearsed with Sofia while we had been walking back from Dragon Bridge. Elisif liked it precisely because it was, in her words, a condemnation of false kings; something she was very sensitive about since her husband had been killed by Ulfric Stormcloak. She was the sort of woman I would have gladly served under, but I had Sofia to think of, and furthermore, I had that oath I had taken. It was moments like this that I was horribly annoyed about it. It just wasn't fair. I was supposed to die. My head was supposed to fly off. If that damn dragon hadn't . . . But then again, if that damn captain hadn't . . But then again . . . I could have played the what if's for the entirety of my life. There was no point. I was, by oath, a Stormcloak now. I might not be actively aiding them, but I was bound sufficiently in my point of view to prevent me from getting too deep into the pro-Imperial politics of Solitude. My heart really went out to her in that throne room. She looked small and vulnerable, and had been deeply in love with her husband, High King Torygg whom Ulfric had killed. Sofia remained completely unaware of my feelings as she no doubt would have found a way to insult Elisif in her own throne room.

Jarl Elisif rewarded the college with a fine patronage of which Sofia and I got a nice chunk.

"How about you let me look after that reward of ours," she suggested. "What? Don't you trust me? What about if I flutter my eyelashes?"

And then we got ready for the festival. And as Sofia and I had made it possible, to say that we were popular that night would be understating the matter. Viarmo the headmaster was almost giddy with amazed astonishment. Folks really liked the festival since it was always held in the summer, when the weather was warmest, and it was a nice break from the mundane routine of the city. I was formerly inducted into the college, which is what I had been trying to achieve since I had heard of it's existence down in Cyrodil and had been working my way north since. Sofia of course, quickly noted we were popular and starting pointing people in my direction for drinks. And people would come up to me and either wanted me to eat something they had gotten for me, such as a sweet roll, or have a glass of spiced wine with them. By the end of the evening, not only did I feel bloated, I was drunk as well. As for Sofia, she was her usual inebriated self.

We swayed back to the Winking Skeever where I was too drunk to play for a room and had to buy it proper. We got into it, we fell upon the bed, I took her into my arms, and we fell asleep. It was wonderful, that few brief moments of feeling her cuddled next to me, smelling her hair . . . Well to be frank I was mostly smelling her breath which reminded me of stale mead. But she simply hummed happy sighs for a few seconds, and then I don't remember any more because I was asleep. But I was certain that now, this was it. We would wake up together, she would look into my eyes, we might kiss a little, and then we would either talk about our plans for the rest of our lives together or we would just up and make love. I really didn't know what to expect when it came down to it. And of course this was Sofia we were talking about.

Yes, I was being a totally naive fool.


	6. Chapter 6 - A Song For Kynesgrove

"We don't have to take orders from that old skeever. As far as I'm concerned you're Dragonborn, I'm extremely beautiful and tough, and she should be taking orders from us!"

"That's your opinion on the chain of command then?" I replied.

Sofia was, as usual, looking horribly cute and cuddly in the sunlight on the road outside of Riverwood. The first touches of fall were changing the leaves and Delphine, the Innkeeper slash secret agent of some unknown dark and mysterious power had run ahead to find her own little tree. Or at least that was the phrase my mother would use when we were on long travels around Cyrodiil. Now as I've observed before, the cute and cuddly quality would vanish every time she opened her mouth but it came back to the fore rather dramatically the moment her mouth was shut again.

"Of course," was Sofia's reply.

"Funny how you don't take orders from me," I observed.

"Why should I? I'm the tough and beautiful one."

"Which is of course why we get into fights in the middle of fights because once again you've jumped in front of me while I'm trying to line up a shot with my bow or trying to unleash that fear spell," I continued. "One of these days I'm going to shoot you because you jumped just as I let loose."

"You just need to be more flexible," was Sofia's response.

"And Delphine is not an old skeever," I concluded. "You're once again acting like I'm your boyfriend. Why should you care if I crawl into Delphine's sleeping fur tonight? You never flirt with me like you do the other guys"

"That old wrinkled hag? You would prefer her to me? And what I'm doing is getting drinks. It's not like I think those guys are cute . . . Most of the time . . . And it's not as if I plan to letting them kiss me or anything."

"Most of the time," I added. "And on the subject of Delphine. She's not wrinkled. And she has blond hair. She's strong, tough, and she's clever. She was standing right there when Farengar was getting the dragon stone from us and neither of us recognized her. And she's an agent for some mysterious group we have no clue about. There's a lot of the exotic in Delphine. So why not?"

Now I had no intention of getting into Delphine's furs. She wasn't that attractive. Her voice in particular was one of those low matter of fact voices with a tone that suggested more testosterone than necessary. Likewise she wore that leather armor which I found clunky. But it was annoying Sofia and anything which suggested to Sofia that she might have competition for my favors was something I was more than happy to cultivate. After all, if Sofia was going to play the "can't touch this" game with me, I was more than happy to play the "Maybe I'll switch girlfriends in a day or two" game with her.

"Well maybe I'll just find another guy to stalk," retorted Sofia. Her expression was worked up into a rather angry sneer.

"No you won't," I replied with an all knowing grin. "I'm the only guy you've ever or will ever track down. And that was before you knew I was Dragonborn. Now that it's obvious who I am, you won't throw away such a status symbol, especially during the fame of my exploits is still spreading phase. No no no, you'll sit like a garden spider, all nice and yellow and black among the flowers in your silver web and wait for the silly city guard bugs to stumble into your lair. But you won't leave me to stalk another guy."

You may be asking why I really was at all interested in Sofia given that I had gotten to know her pretty good, almost as good as my closest friends and family back in the Imperial City. She was loud, expected me to be at her beck and call, more than a little indiscrete, lacked any concept of situational awareness, and refused to commit to any suggestion of a life long partnership of love and trust. Seriously, it's a very good question. By now more than a few women knew I was Dragonborn. In Skyrim that was the ultimate chick magnet. Lisette that cute little blond bard in Solitude at the Winking Skeever? She was interested. Camilla was flirting with me every time I dropped by Riverwood and likewise had seen right through Sofia's pretense that we were a couple.

A wise man would have said I was infatuated. That is, I was in love with an image I had put on Sofia which wasn't really there. And there might have been some of that. But what I saw in Sofia was something a little different which was perfectly consistent with her behavior. There was pain, buried deep, which she was constantly working to numb by a combination of alcohol, sexual advertising, self-promotion, and clinging to social status symbols. There was a self-loathing underneath that brass which required constant suppression.

No, she didn't know I was Dragonborn when she latched on to me. But she had seen something in me which suggested status, no doubt the fact that I was born and raised in the Imperial nobility, so she honed in and followed me, working up a means by which we might meet and then she could tag along. So where did I get this idea about her? Well everything about her was just a bit off. If I complimented Lisette, Camilla, or Ysolda, that sweet prospective innkeeper in Whiterun, on their dress or make up, they smiled and said "Thank you." Sofia said, "of course." Oh she had her moments of insecurity. She was terrified that her breasts were not the right size. She was worried how she looked in make up, but her usual attitude was "I'm good looking, admire me."

Then there was the flirtations. It was always with at least two guys, if not more. She deliberately surrounded herself with piles of guys. She would create this pseudo competition for her affections which would keep all the guys around her trying to 'win'. It acted to keep them at a distance since social graces required that you not get too intimate with a girl in a public setting. It was strictly for manipulation purposes. It was how she got more drinks than I was able to provide.

And so we get to the abuse of alcohol. She didn't get drunk by accident. There never was the "one too many there, better step outside and cool off if you know what I mean" sort of concern. It was a constant. She got drunk every chance she could. And if I were not providing it, she was getting it from other guys. And that was the real bite. That was where I really felt like a wretch. Because on a very real level I was enabling her to do that. I kept her supplied. Any wine, mead, brandy I could snag in our adventures, I secured and packed up. And I fed it to her routinely in the camps. And I did it because it was the only time she allowed me a little physical expression of affection. She would sit next to me by the fire while I filled up her mug. She would lean on me when the world started to sway. And when she was ready to sleep, she would plop down next to me and snuggle up and snore and I got to sort of hold her in my arms. And there were the times she would get so sick she would need to throw up. Naturally I was there to guide her to a spot away from the camp, hold her up as she spewed, wash her face off. Hold her and let her know I was there to take care of it. There were times when I honestly wondered if she had turned out to be a skooma addict, if I would have been giving that to her too.

She knew on some level that if we were to be a team, she had to pull her own load, yet she resented that. Granted, Lydia complained too on occasion, but that was because she was honor bound to do it even when it was abusive. I tried not to be abusive with Lydia, but getting the dragon bones back to the store where they were sold for a nice tidy profit was hard work. For creatures capable of flying like that, dragon bones were rather heavy. So I put up with Lydia's "I am sworn to carry your burdens," sigh which she infrequently expressed. But for Sofia? It was a constant. "Next time you carry my stuff," or "Yippee! I love carrying people's junk," or "Okay but you owe me!" or "But if I break my back you're carrying me." and who could forget the "Oops I dropped that Ha! You should have seen the look on your face!"

In short, she was not acting like a normal girl who has a crush on a guy. She was acting like a girl who hated herself so much she would deliberately keep at a distance a guy she actually did want to love. So why did she hate herself so much? I had no clue. But I was determined to find out, fix it, and then I'd have her. That was why I was taking the abuse. There she stood, looking at me as Delphine came back from her little side jaunt due to Kynareth's call of nature, thinking she had me wrapped around her little finger, and I was busy trying to pick the lock in her brain (note I said brain) in order to look at the black file inside and deal with it.

"Ready to go?" I asked Delphine.

She nodded.

We proceeded to jog down the road. Our goal was Kynesgrove, a small town south of Windhelm where there was what the locals called a dragon mound to the east of the town up a small foot path in the hills behind the village. Kynesgrove itself wasn't much to brag about. It was just an inn with an open field for the tents of the miners who made their living there. There had been plans for a lumber mill as well, but apparently the trees in that area were sacred. Delphine was convinced that the source of the dragons were these dragon mounds. For the dragons were coming back to life. How did she know this? Apparently these dragon mounds were where the Nords had buried the old dragons they had killed once upon a time. Before Helgen, they had all been filled. After Helgen, one by one, they were being opened up. Delphine seemed to think that if we got to the mound where the 'pattern' she had figured out put the next opening, we would be able to see what was happening and learn something about stopping it.

"Damn it," grumbled Sofia. "All this running is giving me a front wedgie."

Delphine and I both stopped and looked at Sofia.

"I said that out loud didn't I?" observed Sofia. Her expression had a bit of a blush.

Delphine and I both nodded our heads.

"The strip between your legs is too thin if you're having that issue," observed Delphine. "Try wearing just a wrap around under your skirt."

"Or go without," I proposed with not even the hint of a cheesy adolescent grin on my face. "Your skirt falls to your ankles, so there's no chance of anyone seeing anything."

So naturally Sofia simply hiked up her skirt so she could get a good grip on those tiny undergarments of hers, she slipped them off, tossed them on the road, and proceeded to blast them into ash with a fire-bolt.

"They were old anyway," was her excuse.

Delphine gave me one of those knowing looks. The sort that suggests that your girlfriend is a bit to indiscreet on certain matters. Part of me was amused that folks were certain Sofia and I were a couple. The other part of me was angry that we were not. And a third part was sad that I saw no way it could ever happen given her personality.

We proceeded to run down the road for a while. It was near the end of the day that we had our next check. The problem was that Kynesgrove was on the other side of the White River and there were only two bridges to cross the river, the first was just south of Windhelm, and the other was at Darkwater Crossing, which was way south of Kynesgrove. My proposal was to swim the White River at the Mixwater Mill. Delphine preferred to travel up to Windhelm and then turn south once we crossed the river. I argued that this would take more time. We proceeded to debate the pros and cons of either approach as we continued down the road, fought a Cave Bear who took a dislike to us, and then dealt with an assassin from the Black Hand who was supposed to kill me, at least according to the note he was carrying. Sofia seemed rather pleased about that, in part because she was the one who strike the killing blow with her dagger, but also because it was a genuine black hand assassin.

"You are happy that there are assassins trying to kill the Dragonborn?" queried Delphine, not a little suspicious.

"The Black Hand only targets important people," replied Sofia.

Delphine's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Sofia," I remarked. ". . . loves the attention."

"You could end up dead!" argued Delphine.

"No way," replied Sofia. "I'm with him. No one can kill him as long as I'm with him."

"See?" I proceeded. "Sofia will kill anyone who tries to kill me first."

"You're crazy," grumbled Delphine. "The both of you."

When we reached Mixwater Mill, Delphine decided she was taking the road. So Sofia and I swam the river, dashed up the banks, found a small shack where a treasure map was found tucked into a nook and from there it was on to Kynesgrove.

It was night when we got there, so I played for our supper and room. Sofia was unable to drink herself into a serious stupor due to the fact that Roggi, the only other serious drinker in the bar had a massive tab with the tavern already and accordingly he was not able to supply Sofia with sufficient drink. Needless to say I was smiling a lot that night while I was playing my lute and singing. Once it became clear to Sofia that she wasn't going to get anything out of Roggi, and as I had only given her an allowance of one bottle for the evening, she sat next to me and began to beat along with the drum.

I have never forgotten that night because of what happened next. Sofia, unable to get drunk, began to concentrate on beating the drum to the rhythm of my music and several of the miners got up and began to dance. She began to beat on the drum in a slightly different style and she began to notice that the dancing likewise changed it's pitch. I looked at her and give her a wink and she gave me a grin back. Over the next few songs, we changed timber and pitch and watched how the revelers changed how they moved to the music we were making. I would look over to Sofia and each time she would look back I saw her little grin get wider until it transformed into a big smile over the next half an hour. She had forgotten herself in the music and for the first time since I had met her, she seemed genuinely happy.

The set ended an hour later and Sofia, still smiling, got up with me and we walked to our room. I closed the door behind us and turned to face her. For the first time in what had seemed forever, she met my gaze and for just a moment I merely looked into those wonderful eyes of hers. Then I put my arms around her, pulled her in, and we had an honest to goodness kiss, that sort that did merit fireworks and women singing arias in the background. It was such a wonderful sensation. I thought at last, we were going to fall in love, we were going to be happy together for the rest of our lives. And so I kissed her a few more times, and listened to her breathing get more intense. And then I paused, looked into her eyes and said, "I love you Sofia. I've loved you since I first laid eyes upon you."

And then she pushed me on the floor so hard I was surprised, once I had gotten over the fact that I was in pain from the impact, that nothing was broken.

"Don't you EVER!" she practically screamed "EVER say that to me again!"

"What In OBLIVION is wrong with you?" I shouted back.

I swear that woman specialized in destroying romantic moods.

I stood up.

"You don't know me," retorted Sofia.

"I know you better than most of my friends," I replied at a fairly decent volume. "We've been together since the middle of Last Seed and now it's the middle of Frostfall! Twenty four hours of non-stop Sofia for not a few weeks and you say I don't know you?"

"No! You don't. If you really knew me? You wouldn't be love with me. So don't tell me that you are! It's a lie!"

I will confess this behavior made absolutely no sense. Especially when you consider this was coming from a woman that was firmly of the opinion that she was one of the most beautiful women in Skyrim. So as that thought popped through my head I decided to try that tack.

"How can it be a lie?" I asked, trying to keep from shouting it. My emotions were on full ship's deck in a hurricane mode. "You're one of the most beautiful women in the world. Why wouldn't any man be in love with you?"

"You're just saying that!" she shot back.

"No!" I replied. "You're ALWAYS saying that!"

"Damn it!" she shrieked. "Don't make me leave you."

I shook my head. "I'm trying to spend the rest of my life with you," I struggled to get out. "How can I be driving you away. I want you to be happy."

"I don't deserve to be happy. So stop trying," she muttered.

I sat down on the bed. I was terrified of what might happen next, but I said it anyway.

"So are you going to leave then?" I asked.

"Do you want me to?" she replied, giving me the impression that she was firmly of the opinion that I was going to say yes.

"No," I said. "I don't want you to go."

"Why?" she came back.

"You won't believe the answer," I replied. "So there's no point in expressing it."

I flopped down on the bed and lay back staring at the ceiling. Anger, frustration, grief, all were rolled up into one and the cause of it was just leaning against the door staring at me. Then she turned her back on me, opened the door, and walked out. I thought I was going to cry.

I don't know when I fell asleep. All I know was that Delphine was shaking me awake and Sofia was sitting up in the bed next to me, looking groggy and hungover. Apparently she had gotten drunk on her own cash.

"Come on!" hissed Delphine. "There's a big black dragon at the mound, and he's doing something. We need to get up there."

I heard the crack of thunder. And I bolted from the bed.

"Come on Sofia!" I said. "We've got work to do."

She grumbled and half rolled half fell half got out of the bed.

"Stay back behind me and Delphine," I said to her over my shoulder as we reached the door to the inn. "I don't want you killed because you were out of sorts."

"I'll be fine," she groaned back.

We came out of the inn and turned to your right.

"No! You don't want to go up there!" cried a woman. "A Dragon. It's attacking!"

"Where is it?" I cried.

"It just flew over the town. It's heading for that burial mound!" she answered. "I don't know what it's doing up there but I'm not waiting around to find out!"

"Come on!" muttered Delphine. "Hurry! We might be too late!"

We dashed forward. There was a footpath which took us past a mine and wound about the hill and rocks. And as I ran forward, I heard another crack of thunder and a low growling voice say, "Sahloknir, Ziil gro dovah ulse."

"We need to find out what's happening," continued Delphine scooting forward.

I crouched and crept and then I saw it. Or rather, I saw two things. The first was that big black spiny which had saved me from certain death at the hands of the Imperials. It was rather loudly hovering over the burial mound. But the mound itself was steaming. That was the only way to describe it. Some sort of magical steam was rising from the mound as the big black dragon hovered.

"Lorkhan's eyes," gasped Delphine. "Look at that big black bastard. Keep your head down! Let's see what it does."

I was more than happy to comply. I had seen that big black boy in action at Helgen. I was in no mood to replay that scene in my life, even with weapons, magic, and good solid enchanted mage robes on.

The big black spiny once again said that phrase. And then it said in a more firm and determined voice, "Slen Tiid Vo!" There was another crack of thunder and the mound exploded.

"Damn it, this is not good," muttered Sofia beside me. It was as if nothing bad had happened the night before. There she was, as close to me as she dared.

Then the skeleton began to speak as flames covered it and flesh began to grow upon it.

"Alduin, thuri! Boaan tiid vokriiha suleyksejun kruziik?"

"What's he saying?" asked Sofia looking at me. I looked back at her and shook my head.

"Geh, Sahloknir, kaali mir," replied the big black spiny. And then, as if it had not mattered a bit that I was trying to hide behind some rocks which were three times my size, big black looked right at me and said, "Ful, losei Dovahkiin? Zu'u koraav nid nol dov do hi." He paused for a second. "You do not even know our tongue do you? Such arrogance, to dare take for yourself the name of dovah." Then he looked back at the other dragon, now fully reconstituted and looking way more healthy than any of us wished. "Sahloknir, krii daar joorre." And he flew away. The other dragon promptly rose up and cried "I am Sahloknir, hear my voice and despair!" And he attacked.

Suddenly I felt Sofia's hand squeeze my arm and then we were in battle mode. With one hand I cast stone flesh and with the other hand I unleashed fire bolt after fire bolt. Delphine was firing arrows and Sophia was likewise firing ice bolts. As for the dragon Sahloknir, he was strafing the area with a freezing breath.

"You try to hurt me and my boyfriend will shout at you!" taunted Sofia.

I was too busy concentrating on hitting that floating lizard with my fire bolts to ask myself why Sofia had just addressed me as 'boyfriend'. But as Sahloknir was hovering over me and preparing to freeze me solid with his voice I shouted, first. "FUS ROH DA!" The force shook him up. He growled in pain and then, as was par for the course, lined up again and I had to duck to keep from getting frosted like a Skyrim birthday cake.

"I told you!" mocked Sofia. "But did you listen? No! Now you have to deal with me, lizard. And I do worse than shout, I nag!"

"My Lord Alduin requires your death. I am glad to oblige him!" roared Sahloknir.

Another thought flitted through my mind. Was it possible that Sofia's self loathing was such that she was actively seeking death? I didn't like that thought, and I felt myself getting, for the first time ever in a battle, terrified not of me dying, but of someone else dying instead. I became totally focused upon Sahloknir, I fired off bolt after bolt, I shouted every time he seemed to be trying to shout and thus kept him off balance. But what I became totally unaware of was what Delphine was doing. I had only two thoughts in my mind, the death of Sahloknir and the protection of Sofia.

"It's to be a real fight then?" said Sahloknir. "Good!"

"Damn straight Sahloknir!" I cried back. "If you want to kill us, you're going to have to fight us first!"

He charged crying, "Thurri du hin sille ko Sovengarde!" I had no idea what that meant, but I suspected he was promising to send me there. He hit the ground with a belly flop and rolled right towards Sofia and myself. I pushed her out of the way and managed to dive with her at the last second. Then, like a total idiot, I pulled out my dagger and leapt up on top of him and ran for his head.

Now you may ask how I was going to kill a beast with a head the size of my body with a dagger? The answer of course is that I didn't. Delphine put an arrow up his gullet which pierced his brain and he fell forward. I didn't fly off when the body impacted the ground because I was able to grab one of the horns as I felt everything go flaccid underneath my feet. But I did bounce around a bit as his head hit the ground. Then I felt that curious feeling once again of a being trying to escape only to be absorbed by myself and it's despair and hopelessness as it felt itself going. I really was getting to loath that feeling. Something was fully ceasing to be because I was there and I didn't like what it suggested.

"That's how it's done," proclaimed Delphine. She was feeling rather good knowing she was the one who had struck the fatal blow. Not that I blamed her. Taking down something this big is always a very vindicating feeling. Being Dragonborn was only a step above being a dragon slayer. Then she looked at me. "So you really are . . . It's true isn't it? You really are Dragonborn.

"Of course it's true," retorted Sofia. "You think I would be adventuring with anyone else?"

It was so typical Sofia, self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing, but I my heart was beating like a young boy who just had a cute girl smile at him. Because it meant she was not ready to walk out of my life just yet. I would have given anything for her to be with me because she loved me, but at the moment all I could hold her with was my status and I was not going to begrudge that. That's what desire does to a guy. I simply was so desirous of her that I was going to take what ever hold I had and use it. Oh yes, it's supposed to be about mutual love and respect but I didn't have that right now and I wanted to have it with her. It was rather frustrating and not in that sense before your dirty mind gets any ideas. (See how much influence she had on me already?) It was to have something just out of reach, constantly. Every time you leapt, you could only brush it with the tips of your fingers. It was my fate to be utterly smitten by a girl who was staying with me simply because I was someone important. And I could not seem to be able to break through that wall. Imagine if you will, giving a girl something precious and she takes it not because she recognizes that you are giving it because you love her and want her to be happy, but because it's her due. And imagine that she thinks it's her due not because she was a spoiled little brat who's daddy did wonderful things to his little girl all her childhood, but in fact because she was so possessed with such a deep self-loathing that she constantly had to buck herself up and thus was constantly telling her self that she deserved such treatment. How do I know she wasn't a spoiled brat? Spoiled brats don't go around putting down their parents. Sofia did. Kids who are always putting down their parents are kids who have done something their parents wouldn't approve of and don't want the guilt trip. Remember my mother and the Night Ritual? Did I leave because I hated her? No I left because I loved her and was terrified she'd find a way to get me to turn against my half-brother. You've never heard me suggest she was a bad mother or never loved me did you?

Sofia said she was horrible, and she was acting as if she had done something horrible. But what she didn't know was that I was so desirous of her that I was prepared to forgive her any crime provided she said she was sorry. And such a thought not only had not entered into her brain, it simply could not enter into her brain. That was what I was going to have to pound into her head. But how?

Back to the present. "I owe you some answers don't I?" began Delphine. "Go ahead. What ever you want to know. Nothing held back."

"Okay," I said. "Who are you really?"

"I'm one of the last members of the Blades," she said.

The Blades . . . I paused to take a breath. I remembered the story. Everyone who cared about the Oblivion Crises remembered the story. But more so my family, the Florians. It was a young member of the Blades who had been present at the death of the Emperor, had taken the Amulet of Kings to Joffrey, the Grand Master of the Blades, who had rescued Martin from burning Kvatch, gotten him to Cloud Ruler Temple, in short, the one Blade who had made it possible for Martin to be the last Septim Emperor and sacrifice himself to drive Mehrunes Dagon back into Oblivion. Because of him, the blood of the last Septim Emperor ran in my veins. Because of him, I was Dragonborn. And here was one of the last members standing before me.

And there I was, playing the damn fool hero and nearly getting myself killed on top of that dragon's head. I was standing in the presence of a giant. A legend of glory from beyond. I felt so damned inadequate.

"A very long time ago, the Blades were dragon slayers, and we served the Dragonborn, the greatest of dragon slayers. For the last two hundred years, since the death of the last Dragonborn emperor, the Blades have been searching for a purpose. Now that dragons are coming back, our purpose is clear again. We need to stop them."

"So what do you know about them coming back?" I asked.

"Not a damn thing. I was just as surprised as you to find that big black dragon here."

"I've seen that dragon before, the one that got away."

"Really? Where?"

"It was the one that attacked Helgen, when Ulfric escaped from the Imperials. Sahloknir seems to have called him Alduin."

"Interesting, same dragon," mused Delphine. "Damn it! We're blundering around in the dark here! We need to figure out who's behind it all!"

"So what's our next move?" I asked.

"You don't know?" asked Sofia, somewhat shocked.

"No, Sofia," I replied "I don't. I have no more clue than Delphine."

"Then we just hunt down this Alduin and kill him," suggested Sofia. "He dies, he stops bringing the other dragons to life. End of problem."

"True enough," I observed. "Now do you happen to know which tavern Alduin likes to drink at?"

"Since I figured out the solution, you deal with the details," replied Sofia.

"The first thing we need to do is figure out who's behind the dragons," mused Delphine.

"You think Big Black Alduin is being run behind the scenes?" I asked. It did sound rather crazy when you thought of it, but even so, it wasn't as if I knew anything more about dragons other than what shouts and spells I had which annoyed them most.

"The Thalmor are our best lead. If they aren't involved, they'll know who is," suggested Delphine.

"What makes you think the Thalmor are bringing dragons back?" I asked. Given how big and powerful Alduin was, and given how he had regarded me as nothing more than a worm with delusions of grandeur, I had a hard time imagining such a beast being under the dominion of anyone, especially Mer whom were just as easy to smush as Humans. But this was a Blade. They were great heroes. She might know something that I didn't. After all, I was merely a Bard who happened to have a genealogy which had given me a supernatural advantage which meant that if the dragon didn't kill me first, it would stay dead once I killed it.

"Nothing solid, yet. But my gut tells me it can't be anybody else," she answered. "The Empire had captured Ulfric. The war was basically over. Then a dragon attacks, Ulfric escapes, and the war is back on. And now the dragons are attacking everywhere, indiscriminately, Skyrim is weakened, the Empire is weakened. Who else gains from that but the Thalmor?"

She had a point. A very good point. But the question in my mind was this, were dragons attacking Summerset too? If they were, the Thalmor would not be behind it. No one unleashes a catastrophe on their enemies which proves just as catastrophic for your own team. No one can predict who will end up more devastated. With dragons blasting everyone everywhere, there's no telling who'll be able to beat who in the end, if anyone will be able to beat anyone anyway.

"So we need to find out what the Thalmor know about the dragons," I concluded. "Any ideas?"

"If we could get into the Thalmor Embassy," mused Delphine. "It's the center of their operations in Skyrim. Problem is, that place is locked up tighter than a miser's purse . . ."

"And Sofia's legs," I sighed silently to myself.

"They could teach me a few things about paranoia," continued Delphine.

"So how do we get into the Thalmor Embassy?" I asked.

"I smile sweetly, pretend I'm all innocent and . . ." began Sofia.

Delphine cut her short with a "Won't work!"

"What will work?" I asked.

"I'm not sure yet," she continued. "I have a few ideas, but I'll need some time to pull a few things together . . . Meet me back in Riverwood. If I'm not back when you get there, wait for me, I shouldn't be long." She paused. "Keep an eye on the sky, this is only going to get worse."

And Delphine took off heading south. There was one of those pregnant pauses which show up in the theater on occasion. I looked over at Sofia, and once again found myself wishing I could look into those beautiful blue eyes of hers and seeing a love for me within them.

"What's wrong with smiling sweetly and looking innocent?" began Sofia.

"Delphine does not think this time it will work," I replied.

"It works with the guards," began Sofia. "I can get away with just about anything . . . Not that I'm a bad person or anything . . ."

"Except the part about how you don't deserve to be loved," I replied.

"I don't want to talk about that," she snapped.

"Well I do," I replied.

"Get over me!" she shouted.

"Do you have any idea how many girls want me right now because I'm Dragonborn?" I practically exploded, throwing my arms out as wide as I could. "Are they better than you? The self-proclaimed most beautiful woman in Skyrim?"

"Quit saying that!" She shouted back. "You make it sound like I'm a braggart! I hate it when people go around being all self-important and boasting and . . ."

"PRECISELY!" I leapt at the sentence mid-exposition and nailed it down with a very big hammer. "You hate everything you are about yourself."

"I don't want to hear this!" she shouted and turned and ran. I pursued. She charged down the footpath and we dashed past the mine. I could hear a guy mocking "Ha ha! Look at the lovers!" as we ran by and I suppressed the urge to shout him into the cliff face behind him. As is so often the case with people who are in a panic, for what ever reason, she was running simply away. If she had been thinking, she would have dashed into the bar because the fight we were about to have was not the sort which could be conducted in the presence of witnesses. But she literally was dashing right into the spot I wanted her to go, far away from the crowds, into the wilderness. There, in the East March Hot Springs, south of Kynesgrove, I caught up to her and tackled her right on top of an untouched dragon mound.

When one is dealing with a woman who knows how to fight, your first tactic is to render her legs impotent while taking advantage of your upper muscle mass. The most effective way of doing this is sitting on her hips and holding her down by the shoulders. If you try for the legs, she's going to kick you . . . repeatedly . . . in the head. And you'll get all dizzy and then pass out.

So when I came to on that dragon mound, Sofia sitting next to me looking rather smug.

"About time you got back up," she observed. "It's already afternoon."

She had made a very strategic blunder. She had underestimated her opponent's determination. Perfectly natural error on her part. Seeing herself as unloveable, she simply could not imagine the depths of affection I had for her, that desire to make her the happiest girl on earth. That stubborn determination which comes from loving someone with every depth of your being. Yeah yeah yeah trowel it on Valentine. Okay, so I had a big infantile crush on the girl, I admit it. But there was that obstacle to surmount. That challenge. They say that guys really appreciate the girls they had to work for and so some clever girls deliberately play hard to get so that the guy, having worked like a dog to get them, will appreciate them even more, provided the guy is not the sort who is so utterly self-absorbed he is incapable of distinguishing between the girl who's deliberately playing hard to get and the girl who finds his presence so nauseating that she's doing everything in her power to be polite while saying no.

If this had been the case with Sofia, it would have been the most masterful playing of that tactic around. But it wasn't. She was not only at war with my affection, she was at war with herself. And so she did not see the second attack coming, which this time, worked.

"Get off me!" she screamed.

"Not until we've talked this out," I replied.

"There's nothing to talk about!" she snapped.

"Oh yes there is," I replied..

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

This went on for a bit so I'll cut it short for brevities sake.

"I'm not letting you up until you admit that I love you," I replied.

"You are crazy!" she screamed.

"No I am in love. And because I am in love, I do silly things for the girl I am in love with."

"You can't be in love with me!"

"Yes I can."

"Can't!"

"Can."

And again it went on for a while.

"It's getting late," argued Sofia after a bit. "If we don't get moving we won't make it back to the inn before sunset and we'll not be able to get a room."

"That's okay," I said. "I can camp outside with you. We've done it before. I mean if you are going to persist in telling me I can't possibly be in love with you when I know for a fact that I can and am, then I guess I'll be sitting on you all night . . . On the cold hard ground . . . Hoping that Alduin doesn't come along and wake this dragon up underneath us because that is the only thing that will get me to get up and let you go. So . . . You feeling lucky, Sofia?"

"I hate you," she growled.

"And I love you," I replied.

"You are insane if you do!" she screamed.

"No I'm perfectly sane. I have the very first girl I have ever cared about right here and I'm not letting her go until she admits that I actually do care about her."

The sun got lower, and she clenched her mouth tight. I kept staring into those big blue eyes of hers and she kept trying to avoid my gaze. But part of her did want to look back, and so her eyes would keep coming back.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she opined.

"Better admit it then," I replied. "Cause it will be really embarrassing for you to soil yourself on top of a dragon mound when there's no dragon coming out of it for an excuse."

"You can't be . . ."

"I can."

"Oh alright!" she shouted. "You love me, but I don't!"

"You don't love me?"

"I don't love me! Happy?"

"Not entirely, but more happy than I was a few hours ago," I said getting up. "Come on girl, let's get back to Kynesgrove and sing for our supper and bed."

I helped her up and put my arm around her shoulder and she leaned in and we walked back to the inn like that. The miners grinned, thinking we were coming back after engaging in something other than what we had been engaging in and I grinned back because in a way, we had.

That night, we played together. She remained sober until after we had finished our set, then she came into the bedroom with a bottle of mead in each hand and chatting with me while she polished both of them off. Then as she flopped down on the bed next to me and just snuggled up by her own accord. It was going to be one of the better nights I mused.

"Don't even think about talking about marriage," she suggested. "Although I . . . Nope, forget it. Not going there at all."

"Don't worry Sofia," I said. "I won't be talking about spending the rest of my life with you until I hear you say the words, 'I love you' back. But of course don't think I'm going to be leaving you either."

"If you did, the first guy with a two handed hammer would cave your skull in," she suggested. "So if you want to live . . . You'll stick with me."

"Oh alright," I sighed while smiling to myself. She didn't want to talk about marriage, which was a promise to live together for the rest of our lives, but she was perfectly willing to tag along with me for the rest of my life which was almost the same thing . . . Or so I thought at the time.

Yeah, I was naive.


	7. Chapter 7 - A Song For Gleda

"Yes?" asked Malborn. He was a rather ordinary looking wood elf whom Delphine had fingered . . . excuse me, a turn of words Sofia had used regarding the spotting and identifying of spies in such a fashion to suggest a different slightly more risqué employment of the said digit was flitting through my mind just then. Allow me to rephrase that. He was the plant in the Thalmor Embassy who was willing to work for the Blades as a spy. There . . . Much better.

"Our mutual friend sent us," I said.

"Really? You two? She picked the two of you? I hope she knows what she's doing."

"I'm the best," suggested Sofia. "And I only work with the best."

"Are you the Dragonborn?" queried Malborn looking at Sofia. "I thought the Dragonborn was a man."

"He's the Dragonborn," said Sofia pointing to me. "I'm the girl who makes him possible."

Malborn looked at me rather curiously. I shrugged. I was not in a mood to explain Sofia. Even at this juncture, after all this time since I had found her asleep on that hay pile, I was having a hard time defining her to anyone.

"Alright," sighed Malborn. "Here's the deal. I can smuggle some equipment into the Embassy for you. Don't plan on bringing anything else in with you. The Thalmor take security very seriously. Give me what you can't live without, and I'll make sure to get it into the Embassy. The rest is up to you."

"Sofia is kind of big to stuff into your pocket," I mused. "So what else should I bring?"

"You're asking me? She promised that she was sending someone who knew what they were doing."

"I know what I'm doing," I sighed. "Which starts with finding out the lay of the land I'm about to have a fight on. I'm a mage, so I don't need weapons. Will some sort of Anti-magic shield surround me the moment I walk in there? I need to know so I can give you the necessary items to counter it. Okay?"

He seemed to pause. He clearly was at a loss and that annoyed me.

"If you actually want to get out alive, I'd bring what ever you need to move quietly, and kill quickly," he concluded.

"That's more than sufficient," I said. "Meet me here this evening and I'll have the items."

Sofia and I left the Winking Skeever Inn.

"Off to that wizard up in the Blue Palace . . . The vampire one," I mused.

"How do you know she's a vampire?" asked Sofia.

"The eyes," I replied. "Her eyes give her away. They are that glowing red. Remember those Vampires we fought off the other night?"

Sofia groaned. She remembered. We were all ready to bed down at the Four Shields Inn in Dragonsbridge when they had burst in and started eating everyone in the Inn. As Sofia and I had objections to being on the menu, we put ourselves off of it.

"Why are they tolerating her?" she asked.

"Not sure," I mused. "Vampires are supposed to be masters of deception. So I wonder why I know who she is and yet no one else seems to notice."

"I had not noticed her eyes glowing red," mused Sofia. "Must be a Dragonborn thing."

"I wonder," I half mused to myself.

"So what are you getting from her?" asked Sofia. "And are you pointing out her glowing eyes?"

"I'm getting an Invisibility and Muffle spell," I replied. "We need to be quiet and sneaky and that's the only way I think the two of us can do it. Otherwise we end up killing everyone in the embassy and that could produce a serious backlash."

"Such as?"

"The Thalmor declare war on the Empire," I replied.

"But the Empire has nothing to do with what we're doing," objected Sofia, more than appropriately.

"I don't think the Thalmor will care," I sighed. "They won't pay a bit of attention to the fact that I'm by oath a Stormcloak. They'll note I'm an Imperial. And since you asked, no, I'm not going to finger Sybille for a vampire before the court."

"I should hope not," replied Sofia. "In front of all those people? That would be very awkward. I would hope you would wait until we were in the bedroom of the inn."

"Before I fingered Sybille?"

"Before you fingered me."

"What have you done that would make me want to finger you? You're not a vampire."

She sighed and then I realized what she had just actually said.

"Was that a request?"

"A Joke!" she insisted. Rather loudly as well.

Yes, she was back to the 'can't touch this' phase of our relationship.

"Anything else?" She continued.

"The Aromatic Shop for ingredients," I continued. "We'll need potions to replenish our magicka since I suspect we'll be casting invisibility and muffle a lot. But if this works, they will never know we were there."

"Ah, but that takes all the fun out of being sneaky, leaving them dead or broke before they know it."

"You sound like your whining, Sofi," I observed.

Sofia's response was silence for a bit. We reached the castle and I nodded to Falk Firebeard. He and I had a mutual understanding which had developed after I and Sofia had broken up a pack of Necromancers who had been trying to summon the Wolf Queen Potema. While I was negotiating with Sybille I noted that Sofia was trying, somewhat surreptitiously, to look at Sybille's eyes. Since Sybille wore a hood, that wasn't easy.

Our shopping and potion making done, we returned to The Winking Skeever and waited for Malborn. I got us a couple of chairs and pulled out our mutual drums and we began to practice. Ever since Kynesgrove, I had been working with Sofia to develop her musical talents. She was getting very good at the drums, and could play a few simple tunes on the flute. It was the only time she would get out of herself and forget, if only for a bit, how much she hated herself. But Sofia's eyes continued to wander. A fellow who looked somewhat like a Breton had walked into the inn. He was in one of those black robes which suggested magic of some sort. When I took another glance, he was just sitting at the bar, with a curious staff next to him that looked like a very stylized rose. He also had a very large jug as well. But he was not touching it. And he was looking at the two of us with a very odd stare.

Sofia lost her place and fell out of rhythm.

"Sofi?"

"Sorry Val."

We started again. Five minutes later, she was distracted again.

"Val? What do you think is in that jug?"

"Home brew I suspect," I replied. "Now lets try the four five four five beat again."

"I'm really thirsty."

"Wait until Malborn get's back."

"He's taking forever!"

"It really wouldn't alleviate his fears and insecurities if he came to pick up our stuff and you were swaying back and forth and threatening to give him big hugs."

"Fine," she groaned.

Although Malborn showed up merely a half an hour later, such was Sofia's impatience that you would have thought he had taken days. The moment Malborn did show up, and I began the process of handing over four separate pouches of magic potions, paralysis poisons, and a pair of elven daggers, Sofia made a beeline for the Breton. By the time Malborn and I had worked out all the necessary arrangements, Sofia was having her mug being filled with the Breton's home brew. I saw Malborn out of the door of the inn, and then walked over to where the black robed Breton and Sofia were.

"His name is Sam Gwensomething," suggested Sofia. "And he has this challenge."

"A drinking contest," answered Sam. "A drinking contest for this staff here."

"Seriously guy," I began. "What do you gain if you win?" There was something just a little off with this guy.

"Well I haven't really thought it out that far," admitted Sam. "But I don't want this staff anymore and it's magical so I thought I would have a contest. The first one to beat me in a drinking contest gets the staff."

"Come on Val!" encouraged Sofia. "Party with me, please?"

That was it. She had pushed all the right buttons. She may have been in a constant state of denial that I was really in love with her, but she was not above manipulating it to her own advantage. And the moment she said those magic words 'with me' she knew I would do it. I was constantly trying to do things with her as a way of pulling us closer together. Silly little twit that I was, I remained firmly convinced that the more time we spent together, the more 'in love' she would fall and accordingly there would come a point where she would say the words and we would be together forever. I look back on those moments now days and still shake my head. But at the time, I was pretty much prepared to do just about anything that my common sense saw no reason to light warning beacons over. So we have a drinking contest with a guy who looks just a little off. We had some spare change for the inn that night. No need to worry too much about things. Delphine would not make her move until Malborn signaled that everything was in place at the Embassy so there were a few days to kill between now and then. I didn't even know if Delphine had secured an invitation for me and Sofia yet anyway. There was still time to get the outfits we would be wearing.

"First round," said Sam. And he filled my mug.

This was not your typical home brew. I mean I had never tasted anything like this in all my days of wandering from Black Marsh to High Rock, from Valenwood to Morrowind and Hammerfell and Cyrodiil in between. I thought I had tasted it all, but this stuff was just the right texture of sweet and bitter and flowed down the throat smooth and easy. It was a matter of seconds it seemed before my mug was empty, as was Sofia's, and Sam poured the three of us our second round.

That too went down smooth and easy. And already I was starting to feel the buzz.

"Dovahkiin!  
>Dovahkiin!<br>Everybody now sing!  
>I forgot,<br>All the words,  
>So I'm making them up!<p>

La da da da da la,  
>La da da da da dah<p>

Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin,  
>La da da da dee dah."<p>

That was Sofia by the way, singing at the top of her lungs.

"Quit shouting!" suggested an irritated patron in the corner.

"Do I look Dragonborn or like one of those creepy guys up on the mountain?" retorted Sofia.

I smiled at her. She smiled back and once again my little heart was going pit a pat.

The third round began the bragging. Sam it seems had been to all sorts of interesting places and new all sorts of juicy gossip on people doing things I had no clue people were actually capable of doing. Famous people especially. Our drinking slowed down a little so by the time the fourth round was poured, a good hour had passed. But we were all feeling it, or at least I was. There was a fifth round and then perhaps a sixth and seventh? I was losing count. Sofia was leaning against me and giggling and began to suggest that she really really really liked me, like you know? A lot? And Sam was saying that he had reached his limit. If we could handle, the two of us, just one more round? The staff would be ours. Sofia's mug was there so fast it seemed like a blur but then again, my vision wasn't much clearer. I think my mug was there, I could see him filling it up. I was wondering just how much brew that jug was capable of holding. But we were downing our mugs, it was sliding down my throat so cool and clean and easy. And something told me I needed to stop because I was no longer tasting it. But there was Sofia giggling in my ear and Sam saying that we had won the staff, we were really fun to drink with, and he knew this place where the wine flowed like water and Sofia was saying "So what are we waiting for?"

Then things really got blurry. There were lights, voices, gentle tunes, flowers being tossed about, Sam suggesting I didn't look so good even though I felt great and then Sofia's voice, in a soft sultry tone, "So that song they sing about you? Is it true? Come on. Why don't you show me? Show me what really happens when a Dragonborn comes."

I woke up in absolute darkness. On something soft and giving. It was furs. Piled high in luxuriant fashion. There were a lot of them. There was a body next to me, smelling of mead and sweet wine. That had to be Sofia. Then I registered that she was naked. Yes, my fingers were touching bare skin everywhere I put them. But then again, so was I. I wasn't sure, but I was somewhat concerned at this point. And I put my left hand on a particular item on my physique to check things out. Yes, there was definitely sticky stuff there.

We had made love.

And I was NOT okay with that.

Now before you get all hyper and huffy about moral preaching and all that, you need to check yourself. I mean yeah, there was a bit of that. But I didn't feel that guilty because I had no memory of the affair and you can't be held entirely accountable for what you do when you don't know what you're doing. But I was angry for a very particular reason.

MY FIRST TIME! AND NOT JUST MY FIRST TIME, BUT MY FIRST TIME WITH THE ONE WOMAN I WANTED TO HAVE THE FIRST TIME WITH AND I CAN'T REMEMBER IT?

I mean really now. That bit so hard. I couldn't remember a thing. She had been in my arms. We had kissed. We had passionately embraced. And I had no clue what it had been like. Okay, so maybe we were not married and should have waited. Okay, yeah, there is that sort of point to why you make those promises. But if I'm going to be bad in the one way which really feels good? I would at least like to be able to remember it later. What if this turned out to be the only time I ever got to make love to Sofia?

I had been robbed!

Sofia made little happy sleepy humming noises beside me. I noticed we didn't have headaches. How much had we drunk? And no hangovers? That was rather odd.

There was a curious itch on my left hand, my third finger. I reached to scratch it and found there was a thin band on my finger. A ring.

What was that doing there?

I sat up and cast light. The little glowing bug hovered me bathing everything in a soft white glow. There was Sofia, looking utterly entrancing with her eyes just beginning to squint and her nose starting to wrinkle in the light as she began to get up. And there on my left hand's ring finger, was a thin band of gold. And on Sofia's left hand, a triple band of silver embellished with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.

We were wearing wedding rings.

And there, on the floor, in a pile was a colorful wedding dress and a woven weave of flowers.

Now I know that at this point the guy is supposed to panic and freak out and scream and get all hyper and everything. But given what I had so wanted to happen, I couldn't help but grin. I turned. Sofia was looking at the beautiful ring on her finger with complete bafflement.

"Sofi?" I asked.

"Val?" she replied looking back at me. She noticed I wasn't wearing anything. But more to the point, she noticed I wasn't blushing or acting self-conscious. "Um, don't tell me we made love last night?"

"Remember all those times you suggested we get drunk and do something we would later regret?" I began. "Well you have to be careful what you wish for, because sometimes you just might get it."

"Oh damn," she sighed. And then she turned to find her clothes and discovered the wedding dress.

"This isn't funny, Val," she suggested.

"I wasn't making a joke," I said. Then I paused just a second before adding, "Mrs. Florian."

"Don't you call me that!" she snapped.

"It's the truth, girl," I said, somewhat irritated because comments like that actually hurt a little. "I don't know how we did it. Or where we did it. But we did it. And here's our nuptial chamber, looking Dwemer enough to be Markarth. Not that we could be there mind you."

"This isn't happening!" she stammered. "This isn't happening. This isn't happening!"

"Yes it is, Yes it is, Yes it is," I sighed. Yeah, her denials were hurting me a bit. But I was prepared to excuse them on the grounds that she had no more memory of the affair than I did. "But if it will make you feel better? We'll track down the Priest or Priestess of Mara who performed the ceremony. They can't be too far from here. I turned just as the dwemer metal door opened and a priestess stuck her head in.

"It's about time you two got up, you incoherent drunken blasphemers! Have you see the mess you made to the temple?" Then her face registered a particular type of disgust. "And get some clothes on!" The door slammed shut with a very loud booming clang.

The moment Sofia heard the word temple, she could no longer deny the situation. She burst into tears. For a second I just stood there while she wept with loud wracking sobs. My emotions began to churn.

"Do you hate me so much that the thought that you married me is enough to make you cry like a mother who just buried her only child?"

She replied by wailing even louder and fell on the bed shaking.

Part of me really was feeling self-centered so I wanted to make it up to her. So I reached over and pulled her to me and held her while she cried.

"Come on girl," I sighed. I was trying to find words to make her feel better. In all the time we had been together, she had never so much as even hinted at shedding a tear.

"You know how I act all tough and like I'm not scared?" She blubbered. "It's not true. I'm scared Val . . . Just . . . Just don't tell anyone okay?"

"What are you afraid of?" I asked. I was somewhat puzzled. "You've just woken up next to the guy you've been with since summer. He's Dragonborn. He's famous. He's told you he loves you. And your bound to him forever now."

"It WON'T BE forever," she wailed. "You'll leave me, I know it!"

"What?" I asked.

"You'll leave me!" she hotly accused me through the tears. "You'll be like all the rest! You'll leave me!"

"Sofi?" I asked, getting not a little irritated. "Skyrim is filled with faithful husbands. Where in the blazes did you get the idea that I would leave you. Haven't I said over and over again that I love you?"

"Words!" she cried. "Just words. It's lies. All of it!"

She stood up. "Like this wedding dress!" She nearly shouted. "LIES!" Her hand gathered a bolt of fire.

"Like Oblivion you will!" I shouted back and jumped to grab the dress.

"I hate that thing!" she screamed.

"You'll not destroy it!" I hissed back. "Some time, some day, you are going to wear this so I can at least have some memory of you being married to me in this. Got it!"

"Never," she said.

And that really hurt. I wanted to cry myself I was so torn to pieces. But then my eyes fell upon her left hand dispersing that ball of fire and I smiled.

"What are you smiling at?" she snapped.

I focused on her face so she would not see that I had noticed she was not taking off her wedding ring.

"Nothing," I replied. "Just something that reminded me that underneath it all, you're still refusing to admit that you really wanted this."

"You're crazy!" she groaned.

"Come on Sofi," I said rummaging through her backpack for her leather and linen outfit which she wore when we were in the field. "Let's get our clothes on and assess the damage we made with Sam. He should be around here somewhere. And there's that staff we need to pick up."

I looked up at her with my hand holding her outfit. She looked back at me. There she was, still naked, with tear streaks down her cheeks. Something about her suggested she was still pretty though. And I noted for the first time that I actually thought that after we had fought.

"Here," I said. I pulled out her 'granny' underthings; the undergarments which she wore that kept her dry and comfortable when we were out in the field. And like a father with a little girl, I helped her dress. Then I got dressed as she sat there, totally focused on the ring she was wearing.

"It's so pretty," she said to herself. I kept my mouth shut and pretended I had not heard.

We stepped out where the Priestess, named Senna, was waiting for us. How to describe the situation? The temple wasn't just a mess, it looked as if a seriously irresponsible party of several hundred with no concept of respect for other people's property had drunk themselves daft in it. Trash was everywhere. There were these beautiful golden statues of the goddess Dibella which towered over us. I could not recall any temple of Dibella in my wanderings, but it was clear that these statues had not escaped the disdain. It was no wonder we were called blasphemers. There was a crude bra hanging on one of them, deliberately placed as if the statue was supposed to wear it and someone had pulled it down a bit. And there was a tattoo painted on the small of the back of another one, which said "Tramp Stamp."

"I'm . . . So sorry," I began. "I really am. But I can't recall a thing about this party we had here?"

"So you don't remember fondling the statues?"

"Are you sure it was me?" I asked looking over at Sofia.

"Maybe it was someone else, yes, you were busy fondling her," said Senna gesturing to Sofia. "I kept asking you to get into Dibella's chamber but I suspect you were too drunk to know what you were doing." She sighed. "The temple has entertained martial parties before but yours gave me more than a little headache."

"I really am sorry," I said. "I simply don't know what happened. I was in Solitude when we started drinking with Sam." I paused to try to recollect.

"Sam Gwensomething," offered Sofia.

"Sam Guevenne," I said.

"And you don't recall about the goat either?" asked Senna.

"A goat?" I asked weakly. I did not like where this was going.

"I always said you were a pervert," suggested Sofia.

"I love you too dear," I replied. Sofia had not expected that comeback and she paused with her mouth a bit open and her hand raised to sort of cover it. But Senna the Priestess seemed to soften a bit. I turned to Senna. "Was Sam here?"

"Dibella teaches love and compassion," mused Senna. "But that does not mean I'm going to be a throw rug for you to walk over. This temple is a mess. And you had a lot to do with it."

I sighed. "Okay, tell you what. If Sam has flown the coop, we'll just have to track him down. We'll clean up. Besides, it was our wedding, and we don't remember a thing about it. I want to be able to reconstruct it as best we can so . . ." I started to pick things up.

We spent the next three days scrubbing down the statues, washing the floor, repairing the damage, in short making sure we left the temple looking as good, if not better, than what it had looked like before we had come in. Sofia was clearly back into the 'can't touch this' mode. There were no kisses goodnight or anything. I was rather grumpy as a result. She was determined to fight this marriage thing tooth and nail. At the end of the third day, the temple was finally cleaned up sufficiently. Sofia, having a hard time doing any cleaning without complaining, was made the errand girl so at least I didn't have to hear her grumble about the labor involved. She cooked and kept our 'chamber' cleaned since we had no place to sleep and I was determined to remain in the temple until it was fully cleaned up. Of course by that time, word had gotten out that I was the Dragonborn, and what's more the priestesses of the temple were beginning to conclude that well I might have gone a little overboard in my marriage celebration, I was doing more than enough to make up for it. I made damn sure each one of those statues of Dibella was glowing before I was done polishing them. So the last evening they had a dinner for me and Sofia. Sofia got drunk of course and sang several songs which were rather risqué but as this was the temple of Dibella, the priestesses mostly giggled.

"Okay," I said after dinner had pretty much ended and we were merely sitting around. "Tell me about Sam and the goat."

"Most of what you said was slurred," said Senna. "But there was the mention of Rorikstead in your ramblings. So I would look there first."

And so the next morning, first thing, we headed for Rorikstead. We walked together in silence for a while. Finally I couldn't stand it any more.

"So," I said with a sigh. "You are firmly convinced I'm going to leave you."

"It's what men do," she replied.

"And how am I going to prove to you that I won't?"

"You can't because you will."

"So your mind is made up, screw the facts," I sighed.

She turned to me.

"You think you're so loving and wonderful? You think you're so hot because you're Dragonborn? You're nothing but an arrogant Imperial who's merely being nice to me because I'm so pretty. The moment my face becomes ugly? The moment I have a baby? You're gone and I know it!"

"So," I mused looking at her. "That's how you got hurt last time wasn't it? You had a baby and he left you."

Sofia was quiet. Very quiet. She simply turned away and kept walking. I began to wonder where the child was. She had probably given it away for adoption. No doubt that was eating on her under the surface. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered. Yes, getting pregnant by a guy who then up and leaves you will hurt, and yes, girls do get feelings of inadequacy over that. But was that really all there was to it? Was she so down on herself behind the scenes simply because the natural consequences of a little too much party for your own good had caught up to her? Of course it could be. If she had envisioned herself as this goddess and this guy had so used her she felt dirty and ugly afterwards, she might not have recovered psychologically from the blow. And if this had happened only a few months ago? She would still be working it through.

I was quiet then. It was a very quiet walk to Rorikstead. There was a brief interlude however. As the sun reached a certain point in the sky, Sofia began to cry again. I reached over and just put my arm around her. She leaned in and blubbered a bit as we walked down the road. It was a pretty view, the river was rushing past us and the hills and cliffs were towering over us. It was one of the prettier spots in the Reach.

"You know," I said. "If you think I was going to hate you because you got pregnant and had a baby before you met me, you're wrong. I still love you."

She only cried more. But unbeknownst to me at the time, I had said the right thing. We got to Rorikstead way to late to make inquiries about Sam and the goat, so we got our room and I lay down on my back, preparing as usual to fall asleep staring at the ceiling. Sofia however, removed the entirety of her clothing before she got into bed and shortly thereafter, we were making love. I'll never know what the first time was like, but the second time was close enough. And it was wonderful. The woman I wanted was mine. The woman I had been dreaming of for weeks, was finally making them come true. Afterwards I looked into her face for a bit, caressing it.

"Do you really think I can't love you?" I asked in a whisper. "Even now?"

"I think you think you love me," she replied quietly. "And I figure I might as well enjoy it while I can. I mean sooner or later I'm going to be old anyway. Most women die alone. So will I. But for now? I have a man who's a great actor. If I didn't know better I really would believe you loved me so much. And besides, you're Dragonborn and friends of Jarls. I could do worse."

Not exactly romantic I'll freely admit, but as I said before, I was taking what I could get.

We got up the next morning and I made a few quiet enquiries and was directed to Ennis' Farm. If I had any doubt as to the validity of what I had been told, it was swiftly dashed the moment Ennis spotted us.

"You two! You have a lot of nerve showing yourselves in this town again. What have you got to say for yourselves?"

"It's him you want to talk to," suggested Sofia pointing to me.

"Like you were not the distraction?" snapped Ennis, facing Sofia. "Standing on the top of my fence naked shouting those crude things about the Greybeards?"

I'm sorry to say I was grinning at this point. I made like I was coughing so I could cover my mouth to hide it.

Sofia sighed to herself.

"I'm really sorry," I said to Ennis. "I was so drunk I have no memory of the entire event. I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Is that so?" He shouted. "Does the name Gleda ring a bell? The star beauty of my farm? Kidnapped by a drunk lout with his crude slutty wife and sold to a giant? You'd better remember her right fast, before I call the guards and have you two hauled away."

"That sounds really bad," I sighed.

"You're damned right it does. I'll never breed another prize-winning goat like Gleda! And don't you think of coming back to Rorikstead until you get her back from that Giant."

I sighed. "Can you elaborate a bit more on Gleda? Like I said, I have no memory of what Sofi and I did."

"You really don't remember stealing a goat and selling her to a Giant? Are you thick? Go get her. At least she's bound to follow you back. You smell like the fermented feed she likes."

"Okay I will," I said. "Did I mention anything about Sam and a staff?"

"You mentioned something like that. When you were running off with my goat! Tell you what - you bring back my goat and maybe I'll give a damn about your staff."

"Fair enough," I said. And we set off looking for Gleda the Goat.

"This has certainly turned out to be a rather miserable day," suggested Sofia.

"It could be worse," I replied.

"And how could it be worse?"

"I could be doing this alone," I replied. "Without you." I was sure this little bit of flattery would soften her up.

"I feel so privileged to be helping you fix your mess," groaned Sofia.

"Party with me please, Val?" I began. "And who was it that was naked on top of the fence?"

"Are you suggesting this is my fault?" her voice was raising in pitch and volume.

"Not entirely," I replied. "I did agree to party with you. And it was Sam who proposed the drinking. If anyone is to blame for the start of this trouble, it's him. And he's the one who's run off and left us with the mess."

"Oh yeah," observed Sofia. "He's getting all his teeth kicked out."

She was more than happy to put all the blame on Sam. And I'll confess I wasn't entirely happy with him either. He had, after all, made himself scarce after the party had ended. All I had was a note from him which suggested that the staff was broken and needed items to fix. I figured I could deal with that after I got the staff. His note left no clue as to where he had gone. And I'll be frank. At this point, the staff was not important. Neither was finding him. I would have been happy to have left him be and made a note to myself about the dangers of trying out new home brews by fellows you strike you as just a little off. But what was important was the fact that I was now married to Sofia, I had no memory of the event, and damn it, I was going to reconstruct that if it was the last thing I did. I hoped that if I did put it all together, something would be triggered so I might remember something of what I would have thought would have been one of the most important days of my life. Not to mention that they say you never forget your first time. Well I had.

Now you would have thought that finding a Giant in the tundra of Skyrim would have been easy. The problem is that Skyrim is not a small place. We were out there for two days. Sofia hated camping and so there was no love making for me in spite of my efforts. Of course I really had no clue what I needed to do to get her in the mood. I didn't even know there were things I could do to get her in the mood. You know? I just sort of thought these things sort of just happened. But as it was, on the morning of the third day, I heard the loud footfalls of a giant and sure enough, there he was, with Gleda the goat trotting along at his feet. Of course I didn't know for certain it was Gleda. I mean, all goats look alike to me. But I figured that since I had supposedly sold it to the Giant I could buy it back. I don't know how I sold it, but I presumed this giant was more communicative than the average giant. So I began to walk up and he raised his club in the air and shook it at me.

"Nope," observed Sofia. "That's not gonna work."

"Can you distract him while I dash in and lure the goat away?" I asked Sofia.

"Val? Can't we just kill him from here?"

"We sold him that goat in good faith. I can't just up and kill him."

"I can."

"Sofi? Don't you ever feel a little guilty about all the killing we do?"

"Well yeah, but then I feel empowered. Who'd have thought feelings were so complex?"

I sighed and thought for a moment. Sofia just stood there and looked at me. I looked back at her and once again lost myself in that pretty face with the big blue eyes framed in that black luxuriant hair. Why did she have to be so damned unapproachable and paradoxical? Then I had an idea.

"You have inspired me," I said.

"About time," she replied.

You know? Today as I tell this to you, I look back on this and laugh. But I saw no humor in it at the time.

"Conjure Familiar, you know it?" I queried struggling to keep my voice from rising in volume.

"Yes?"

"We cast simultaneously and then make a dash for the goat. Then as he pursues, we keep sending familiars after him to keep him occupied until he either loses us or gives up."

"He's barely going to notice them. They won't hurt him much."

"That's the point. I sold him that goat in good faith. I don't know how I did it. And it's clear he's not going to let us approach him now. So rather than kill him, I'm only going to steal from him. So the familiars keep him occupied until we put enough distance between us and him that he loses us. Got it?"

"I got it," she sighed. "But before we do that?"

"Yes?"

"My undergarments are really starting to chaff. I don't suppose you would . . . No, that would be pretty awkward for the both of us."

"Sofi?"

"Yes Val?"

"Why do I love you?"

"I keep telling you, you don't."

"Okay, but as soon as we take care of this. We'll find a nice hot spring and we can soak in it for a while and give your undergarments a good long hot bath. That should clean everything up."

"Will there be mead?"

"I'm sure I can find something in one of my pack's secret compartments."

"Then it's a date."

The tactic worked by the way. Conjure Familiar sends a ghost wolf towards your designated target, this being the giant with Gleda the goat. Once the giant was fully absorbed with dealing with the ghost wolves, I was able to get close enough to Gleda that she started trotting along behind me. It's not that the Giant didn't pursue, but the moment either Sofia's or my familiar was dispelled, we conjured another one. There were magic potions drunk quite copiously but I always made sure I had a bunch of those and the bottle clinking disguised the location of the mead. Sofia never had the patience to go entirely though my pack to find where the two or three bottles of drink I had stashed away there. But when there was mead at the end of the day, she would work more enthusiastically.

Ennis was thrilled that Gleda was back, safe and sound. He had firmly expected her to be eaten by this time. So for starters he showed me the note I had written to him explaining what I was doing and why I was doing it. The first half was entirely gibberish that I could make no heads or tails of. And the second part was totally smeared by what looked like a very generous spilling of mead. There was only one bit of sentence which made any sense, and that was "replaying Ysolda in Whiterun".

"Well off to Whiterun," I mused.

"After the hot springs," added Sofia.

I nodded. I had a pretty good idea where one would be.

Now there are hot springs and then there are springs which are warm. I can't tell you why there is a difference but several of the springs which feed the rivers of Skyrim bubble up not boiling hot, or even steaming hot, but warm enough to feel like bathwater and these can be very comfortable to soak in, especially on a cool Skyrim night when the northern lights are out and flickering and you have your fur bedrolls close enough that it will be only a little chilly as you work your way into them. Or in the case of Sofia, working her way into mine right after a very romantic interlude in the spring itself of several hours.

For a few moments we just snuggled and then Sofia started to talk again.

"You know it's really strange," she began.

"What's strange?" I asked.

"When we did it in the springs," she said. "It felt good . . . again. In fact, it really got intense there at the end and I had to bite down hard to keep from groaning and making you think you were hurting me."

"It felt good again?"

"It never felt good before. It was just something you had to do if you wanted to be able to tag along with the guy. And sometimes it was really uncomfortable? But you said such nice things to me on the road to Rorikstead that I thought I could . . . you know? . . . show my appreciation. Because guys like it when the girl does that. And it felt good. So in the springs I wanted to see if that would happen again . . . and it felt even better. So what's your secret? Why do I actually like doing it with you and not with my old boyfriend? Why am I, right now instead of feeling just nothing or maybe a little dirty, feeling relaxed and . . . safe?"

"Sofi? I have no clue," I began. "I mean my friends who were married? We'd get together in the taverns of the Imperial City and my friends who had wives would get into these brag fests on how much their wives screamed when they were making love. I felt so utterly out of the loop. I mean these guys were so experienced, I couldn't even fake it in front of them. So all you're telling me is that you're my wife."

I began to chuckle. I wasn't out of the loop any more. I could say that my wife had to bite down to keep from screaming too loudly and wake the neighbors.

"I'm really having a hard time believing that the reason why I like doing it with you is because we're married. My mother would bitch so much about the demands my dad put on her." Sofia paused. "I don't remember our first time either. So Rorikstead was like the first time with you for me. It was so strange. It was like we had already done it a hundred times. There was nothing clumsy about you. And after this last time? I really want to fall asleep next to you. I know you're going to be like all the rest. I know that this will end, when I've really gotten used to it, but right now? I don't care. I just want to feel your heart beating under my hand. I want to feel your arm around my shoulder. I want to pretend for a little that I'll always have a guy like you holding me, when I feel a little scared."

"I have this silly little dream, Sofi," I said. As you probably guessed, I wasn't directly addressing what she had said. I was instead, trying to refute it. "You've noticed that I don't have so many bottles in my secret stash as of late."

"Yeah, and it's cheaper stuff too. I'm not surprised. I figure that you figure you've got me so you don't have to try so hard."

"No Sofi," I said. "I'm putting a bit back after each job we do."

"Wouldn't it be good if we could make money without helping other people?"

"I'm not going to talk about that Sofi. I don't see any problem with helping other people and getting paid for it. Like I said. I've been giving a few hundred Septims to Lydia every few weeks or so to invest in Whiterun."

"Val? Why are you trusting that bitch with our money?"

"She's not a bitch, she's a house carl, she's sworn to my service, and she's doing a very good job making that money grow. We're worth close to ten thousand in Whiterun now. And she's happy to do it because she has Breezehome all to herself and it's right next to Adrianne's forge and the two have become good friends. But we're getting a cut out of all the business that happens in Whiterun now and you know what I'm going to do when we get to fifty thousand?"

"Have a party so big the entire town gets trashed?"

"You would suggest that . . ." I sighed.

"A girl can dream can't she?"

"Falk and I have been getting to know each other," I continued. "Especially since I've proven I can be discrete. So it's been hinted that Jarl Elisif is going to test me out shortly, and if I pass, permission will be granted to buy property in Solitude. And there's this really beautiful house, right next to the Bard's college that has no owner at present. I want to buy it, and carry you over that thresh hold and have you for mine for the rest of our lives. You will be able to have your mead out on the porch overlooking the Sea of Ghosts, big roaring fireplaces for the cold winter nights, and there will be bedrooms for all the kids we'll have, and maybe I'll even get to be made a thane of Haafingar as well and I'll make sure we have a fat and dumpy and unshaven house carl named Brug to babysit the kids so you won't have to be jealous of butch women who clank when they walk and smell of oiled steel. How does that sound?"

Sofia giggled. "You tell the sweetest lies," she whispered. "I have a question."

"What?"

"Will the third time be even more intense?"

"Beware, beware," I growled. "The Dragonborn comes."

"And I have just the spot for him to do it in," she replied.


	8. Chapter 8 - A Song For Sam

"Children creep me out. Is it just me or do they all look the same?" asked Sofia.

We were walking down the street past Breezehome heading for the market plaza.

"Well there are clear differences between the girls and the boys," I suggested.

"Boys! Girls! Dogs! Elders! There nobody I won't fight!" came the boast from a young girl to our right.

"If that were my daughter," sighed Sofia. "I would be giving her such a beating."

I walked up to Ysolda who was standing by the well in the plaza.

"So," She began. "You're finally back. Look I've been patient, but you still owe me."

I looked over to Sofia and nodded. We were getting used to this now.

"Yeah we wanted to talk to you about that," I began.

"We were both so utterly drunk we really don't remember what we said or did," Sofia continued. "So we've been getting that a lot."

"But tell us what we did and we'll honor it," I finished.

"Ah, what's wrong?" Ysolda asked. "Did the engagement fall through? Look, how about we call it even, so long as you bring back the wedding ring?"

Sofia's right hand instinctively covered her left hand. Ysolda did not seem to notice as she was looking at me. This struck me as rather odd. Didn't Ysolda know that it was Sofia I was married to?

"That's really a shame," she continued. "I was so looking forward to the wedding. You said you would have all the most interesting guests."

"Do you know what I did with it?" I asked. Now I knew exactly what I had done with it. It was there on Sofi's left ring finger. But what I was trying to do was see what Ysolda would say. Remember, I did not remember any of this and so was trying to reconstruct the affair as best I could so that I would hopefully have something triggered in my memory. Plus, she had already mentioned that she had been invited and we were already married which would have been taken as a snub by Ysolda. I did not wish to break that bit of news to her yet.

"You went right out to give it to your fiancé," answered Ysolda. "Don't you even remember where you left her? After you told me that sweet story of how you were going to have the ceremony in Witchmist Grove? I can see why she left you."

"So what was the story of his fiancé?" asked Sofia. I nearly did a double take on that. But then it dawned on me. She was curious as to what I was saying to other people about her. And Ysolda obviously did not know that Sofia had been the fiancé. Now how had I managed to forget to tell Ysolda that? No doubt the same way I had managed to forget the proposal, the engagement ring, the wedding, the reception, and the wedding night I suspect.

"You don't know?" Ysolda was clearly surprised by all this. "He didn't tell you?"

Sofia sadly shook her.

"My brother is so irresponsible," she sighed. "His own dad doesn't know yet and I only found out a week ago."

You know, when you've taught them something, you can't help but be proud. Just the same, when you're the brunt? What can I say? This is Sofi we're talking about. Of course she had made a very major error. She had already admitted she was drunk which suggested she was part of the wedding party. But Ysolda did not catch the contradiction.

"How could you forget?" Ysolda said to me. "It was the sweetest story I'd ever heard."

"I'm a heel," I sighed. "I know it."

"Damn straight," added Sofia crossing her arms and looking at me with a huff. She managed to do that while keeping the ring clearly hidden too. I had to be impressed at her slight of hand skills. Just the same I swore that girl was going to pay after this.

"You proposed under the full moons, under the biggest tree in Witchmist Grove, surrounded by fireflies. It was straight out of a story book." continued Ysolda.

"That sounds so romantic," sighed Sofia giving me a very loving and soft gaze. For a brief second I realized that something in her had been touched. "How could you forget something like that you STUPID JERK!"

I hung my head . . . But inside I was making all sorts of promises to myself as to what I was going to do with that woman once no one was looking. And I'm not talking about those sorts of things so get your mind out of the gutter and into the boxing ring.

"Well I'll tell you what," I said. "Let me pay for it now. And if I can recover it, I'll bring it back and you can refund me 95% okay?"

"That would be more than fair," agreed Ysolda.

We left to secure pen and paper and write out instructions to Lydia to pay Ysolda 2,000 septims for the ring which had been the price. Then Sofia and I headed for the gate to start on the road to Witchmist Grove.

"Um can we go into Breezehome for a second?" asked Sofia. "I have an itch in a really inappropriate place. I would scratch it but I'm sure you don't want to the citizens of Whiterun see me itching my uh . . . never mind."

"Right," I said and we walked into Breezehome. Sofia made for the bedroom upstairs and I chatted with Lydia for a moment or two and told her to expect the letter from Ysolda which had been written by me. Sofia came down a second later and we bid farewell and headed out.

"Off to Witchmist Grove," I mused. "You know where that is Sofi?"

"Yeah Val, it's south of Kynesgrove in the thermal springs."

"Is it pretty?"

"It is," she said to herself. "It's the very sort of place where you would take me if you were planning on proposing and I was drunk enough to say yes."

"So if I were to take you there now, get down on my knees, once again ask you, and put that ring once again on your finger you would say no?"

"No . . . I mean yes . . . I mean . . . DAMN IT, VAL! JUST BE HAPPY I'M PRETENDING FOR A BIT OKAY?"

"Okay girl," I said. "I think I've had my emotions churned enough for a pound of butter today."

We walked on, turning left past the Honningbrew Meadery. Turning left again after we crossed the bridge. We walked a few hundred yards and were set upon by a pack of wolves, but it had been weeks since a pack could threaten us. I had cast so much magic it was getting pretty old hat. They barely had time to feel the pain before they were all dead.

"Why is it that they are always hanging out in that spot?" I mused out loud.

"Have you ever thought that perhaps we're nothing but playthings in some game?" asked Sofia.

"Sofi? That is so bizarre, where do you get ideas like that."

"It makes you wonder," she mused to herself. It was clear she really wasn't paying attention to what I was saying.

We walked on for a bit, turning more east. The land opened up and the river fell away into the great canyon which marked this part of the road. There was a mist rising up over the falls by the watch towers which were notorious for the number of brigand gangs which would congregate there. I swore every third or fourth time we walked by those towers there was a new thief trying to extract a toll from us. In spite of this, it was a pretty view. Then I saw a bunch of blue mountain flowers in full bloom. I told Sofi to stop and I collected a bunch of them and then proceeded to weave a wreath with them and put them on her head. I had this dream that she would giggle and get all coy and cute. But this was Sofi and so her response was rather predictable. She tried to look at the wreath once it was on her by looking up. Then she sighed.

"It looks cute," I insisted.

"Cute is a step below beautiful Val," she argued.

"Not necessarily," I replied. "Cute can be really like 'your turning me on right now' cute."

"That's hot, Val. Not cute. Cute is those frilly princesses you find on the theater stages in Cyrodiil? The sort I want to push into those thick goopy horse hooves churned mud puddles."

I decided to change the subject as we continued walking. Sofi however, did not remove the wreath of flowers.

"I've been thinking of a song, I've got the first two verses written, I want you to listen and tell me what you think okay?"

"Sure," she replied.

I began to sing . . .

"Me and Sofi wandering round,  
>Found ourselves in Whiterun town,<br>A grey old dog without a fuss,  
>Up and followed both of us.<p>

The Battleborns they scream and cuss,  
>Call us Stormcloaks and a wuss,<br>Sofi smiled and was a tease,  
>Then she kicked them 'tween the knees.<p>

_Oh, every time we go to town,_  
><em>The boys keep kicking our dog around,<em>  
><em>Makes no difference if he is a hound,<em>  
><em>You gotta quit kicking our dog around.<em>

The old grey dog he had no fear,  
>And so he bit them in the rear,<br>So me and Sofi laughed and stuff,  
>And told them that they weren't so tough.<p>

The Battleborns got on a box,  
>And then they started throwing rocks,<br>They tied a can to the old dog's tail,  
>And chased him by the Town Guard jail.<p>

_Oh, every time we go to town,_  
><em>The boys keep kicking our dog around,<em>  
><em>Makes no difference if he is a hound,<em>  
><em>You gotta quit kicking our dog around."<em>

"What do you think so far?" I asked.

"I have this image of a bunch of Argonians sitting by their huts in the Black Marsh chewing on chicken bones," suggested Sofia.

"That hokey?"

"Yeah, don't let that one see the light of day, Val." She gave me one of those 'yeah I'm going to fun you a bit smiles'. "I'm remembering a song I heard once."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think her name was Malukah or something," continued Sofi. "I never forgot it. It was you know, compelling?"

"Let's hear it," I said.

And Sofi began to sing in that rich vibrant alto voice of hers.

"Hope can drown lost in thunderous sound,  
>Fear can claim what little faith remains,<p>

But I carry strength from souls now gone,  
>They won't let me give in...<p>

I will never surrender  
>We'll free the land and sky<br>Crush my heart into embers  
>And I will reignite...<br>I will reignite

Death will take those who fight alone,  
>But united we can break a fate once set in stone,<p>

Just hold the line until the end,  
>'Cause we will give them hell...<p>

I will never surrender  
>We'll free the land and sky<br>Crush my heart into embers  
>And I will reignite...<br>I will reignite."

"So? What images are going through your head?" she asked. Her head was tilted a little in curiosity.

"I have this crazy image of all these gigantic bugs descending from the sky and destroying cities," I said.

"Val? That is so strange."

"Yeah," I said. "Like anyone would write a story about that."

"Incoming Frostbite Spider Spit," she said.

Actually what she said was "If spit" which was our code for that since you seldom if ever see these creatures closing in for the kill and often you spy the spit coming in after the spider has spat it at you. You don't have much time to react. I ducked and began to backpedal while she shifted in front. We were busy for the next three minutes dealing with a very large spider. Once that thing was despatched I mused for a bit on if a Fear spell would work on it or if it was simply too stupid to understand fear. My musings were halted once Sofi pointed out that I didn't know the spell.

"Right," I sighed.

"I like keeping you alive. It gives me purpose," she suggested.

It was evening by the time we got to the grove. Thanks to the thermal springs, the area was foggy and that curious wet warm which you get in a bathroom when the tub is filled with steaming water. Of course Autumn was making it's presence known as well and there were blasts of cool air which came down intermittently. We walked cautiously until we found a hut. And then out of the hut came a hag raven. We were both alert, but the creature cackled and smiled and said, "So the newlyweds are back?"

"Moire?" I asked. That name had popped into my head.

"Yes yes," She wheezed. "Oooo let me look at the pretty pretty blushing bride." And she waddled over to Sofi. "Esmerelda with the black feathers has the bouquet you threw. She's looking for a husband, the shameless hussy." And the craziest thing was going through my head. . . . Alcohol and food for the party? 2,500 Septims, Cleaning bills after the wedding party? 1,250 Septimes, Wedding Dress? 150 Septims, Wedding rings? 2,150 Septims. The expression on Sofi's face when she discovers who her bride's maids were? Priceless.

I let the hag raven talk. Understand, hag ravens were once upon a time women. And for that reason, some of the humanity remains. So by the occasional aside and question, Moire wadded over to the spot where we had had the ceremony. No memory was triggered, but it was a very pretty vista and Sofi in particular had a set of emotions on her face which suggested both regret and embarrassment. On a very real level, she wanted to remember this as much as I did. Or so I hoped. It even reached a point where Esmerelda showed up, and between the two hag ravens trying to upstage each other, we ended up at the exact spot where we had made our vows standing in the exact postures and I looked into Sofi's eyes and said, "I'd do it again you know."

But what was also important was that the Hag Ravens knew where Sam was. And so we were able to bid our farewells and set off back west and north where we hoped we would catch Sam and get him to explain himself.

"Why did you torture me like that?" asked Sofia when we were safely out of the Hag Raven's audio capabilities.

"Sofi?" I said. "Underneath that determination to not believe that I plan on spending the rest of my life with you, buried under that firm conviction that I'm just like your last boyfriend, deep beneath that utter conviction that sooner or later I'm going to find out your deep dark secrets and hate you forever, is a little girl desperately wanting to live happily ever after. That's why . . . you think . . . I torture you."

She was quiet for a bit. Then we reached the river and she burst into tears.

"Hey," I said. "It's okay."

"Why can't it be forever," she whimpered. "Why does it have to end?"

"I'm here for you now," I said. There was no point in insisting otherwise. She still would not believe me.

We crossed the river, but by then it was dark. Pitching our tent by the river underneath a cliff face which hid us from the road, we crawled into our furs and fell asleep. Somewhere in the middle of the night, Sofi, insisting she was just cold, crawled into my fur and snuggled up. We fell back asleep and when I woke up, she was still there next to me, her long black hair over most of her face. I gently brushed it back and looked at that peace filled face asleep before me. I let out a very discouraged sigh. I lay back.

"Talos?" I said quietly. I didn't want Sofi to hear me and she was right there almost on top of me. "I'm getting really tired of this fight. I know I'm dragon born and all, but why did you let Dibella send this one? Isn't Alduin and his little 'raise the dragons from the dead' scheme enough for my plate?"

If you think Talos was going to come down and chat with me about my martial problems, I'm afraid I must disappoint you. The gods prefer speaking through their priests and priestesses. But sometimes, they send their answer in ways you don't anticipate. I lay there in silence for a moment or two then Sofi made a little happy hmmm sound and began to kiss my ear. Forty five minutes later we were still in my furs but we had made love and I was ready to take on the day. There's this fantasy that some girls have that if they just sleep with the guy, he'll up and do great things. I don't know about the great things part, but Sofi definitely had a way of making me get up and face the craziness which was about to be unleashed.

The tower Sam was supposed to be in was packed full of rabid kill them all mages and so it was one duel arcane after another before we finally got to a central part and this portal opened up. Sofi looked at me and I looked back at her.

"This has been a very awkward adventure," she observed. "I'm thinking we really got taken this time."

I nodded. "We might as well jump in and see what new horrible fates await us," I concluded.

"What could be worse than waking up and finding you were married?" she asked.

"Through that portal are the ten children we have conceived and given birth to," I said. "And they all can't wait to see their mommy and daddy come back."

It was supposed to be a joke, but I thought Sofi was going to cry again, and then there was a spasm of rage which almost unnerved me. But it passed swiftly. Holding her hand, we passed into the portal and found ourselves in a gentle evening grove. The foot path was lit with candle lanterns and there was soft sweet music playing all around us. Lightning bugs flickered and there was the sound of singing and laughter in the distance.

"Val?" began Sofi. "When we see the bandits gathering around the camp fire? I will admit I get a little scared. When we walk into the crypt and see those drauger laying upon those pallets start to get up? I will admit I get a little scared. When we see those coffins in a row and those vampires getting out of them? I will admit I get a little scared. And when I see those Dwemer centurions steam up? I will admit I get a little scared. But this terrifies me."

I had to admit, given all the crazy that had happened so far since I had crossed the border into Skyrim three months ago, this was highly unnerving. We followed the path and found ourselves at a picnic area where a collection of happy faced folk were eating and drinking. Sam was standing under the lamppost next to them content. He looked up at us and smiled. I approached him.

"You're here!" he said. "I was beginning to think you might not make it."

"It's been quite the trip," I said. "Where are we?"

"I thought you might not remember your first trip here. You had a big night. I think you've definitely earned the staff."

"So why did you dash off and leave us?" I asked.

"Oh? Well to tell the truth," began Sam. And then he transformed into a large and horned daedra. "I really just needed some reason to encourage you to go into the world and spread merriment."

Sofi's exclamation began with with an 'Oh my,' then expressed a rather crude description of our love making, and ended it with an appeal to Akatosh.

"And your great great great grandmother really liked the idea," finished the daedra. Of course the mention of my ancestor confirmed I was looking at Sanguine.

"And you did just that!" continued Sanguine. "I haven't been so entertained in at least 100 years."

"So this was just a prank?" I asked.

"Just a prank? Just a Prank? The Daedric Lord of Debauchery does not deal in mere 'pranks'. This may have begun as a minor amusement, but it wasn't long before I realized you'd make a more interesting bearer of my not-quite-holy staff."

"So why did you choose us?" asked Sofi who was beginning to find her voice.

"Well as I said," continued Sanguine. "Your husband's ancestor thought it would be fun. And you're going places and well, if your old uncle Sanguine could help you out why not? But I'll be frank, I don't always think these things through very well. But no point in keeping you locked up with the staff."

And we were back in the Winking Skeever Inn in Solitude and Sofia was holding the stylized rose staff which we had seen with Sanguine when he had first walked into the inn.

"Val?"

"Yes, Sofi?"

"The next time I suggest we spend our reward money in a way that will even make Sanguine, the Daedric prince of debauchery proud, promise me you will kick my backside hard?"


	9. Chapter 9 - A Song For Elenwen

"You never did tell me about your parents. You are Dragonborn. Does that mean you had ancestors who were dragons? That would be really disturbing if you did." It was Fredas, the 24th of Frostfall. Sofi was chatting with me as we were walking down the hill from Solitude towards Katla's Farm where we had been signaled that Delphine was waiting for us.

"You do recall Sanguine making reference to my great-great-grandmother?"

"Was it two or three greats?"

"I don't know, I don't count that high," I sighed. "But she's the originator of the clan. It was her decision to sleep with Martin Septim which made me the man I am today."

"Oh that's right," mused Sofia. She seemed to come to a decision. "I think maybe it wouldn't be so disturbing if you had real live dragons in your ancestry after all. Sanguine is crazy enough. And it was quite a few generations ago. But it makes me wonder. Kajiit look like humans, but they also look like Sabre Cats. You don't suppose a Human and a Sabre Cat . . . NOPE! I'm not going there."

"Good idea," I replied looking over at her. The sun was glistening off her hair and there was a shimmer in it. She was, as usual, looking beautiful. "I would tell you that you are looking beautiful," I continued. "But you already know that."

"I do," she replied. "But a little reminder doesn't hurt does it?"

Delphine was waiting for us by the windmill at the farm. As I walked up to her she inquired about the equipment we had given to Malborn. Then she asked why we had vanished for all those days.

"You really don't want to ask," I sighed. "We'd be late for this party once we had explained it."

"Then I need to hand over your invitation," she said giving me a very formal calligraphic letter which contained the invitation."

"There's only one?" I asked. "I was counting on Sofi coming along."

"The invitations are for individuals," continued Delphine. "I had a hard enough time for one."

"But she's my wife!" I pressed the matter. I was not okay with this. While I was fairly certain I could get through the embassy alone, I really didn't want to.

"Wife?" asked Delphine looking baffled. "Last time I checked, you were just partners with a rather rocky relationship.

"It was rather unplanned," began Sofi. "Like when you've just finished your fourth bottle of mead and you have to go really bad and there's this line at the privy and you're hopping up and down?"

"That is a really strange way to describe a spontaneous marriage," observed Delphine.

"I prefer to think of it as innovative," answered Sofi.

Delphine looked at me. "It took me forever to swing this," she said.

"I'm going to take a chance that Elenwen is the sort who regards wives as part of the invitation, and besides, Malborn smuggled in her gear as well," I concluded.

"Val?" began Delphine. "I don't think we can afford this risk."

"You can't afford to not take it," I replied back. "I can't explain it anyway else, but without her, I simply can not function on a normal level. There are too many things I depend on in the adventuring field which she covers for me."

Delphine paused.

"And I stole a really nice . . . I mean picked out a really nice dress too," argued Sofi.

Delphine, being a blade, picked up the slip on Sofi's part.

"I was wondering how you were able to afford that outfit," she asked. "You look nice in it."

And she did. It was a deep green robe with a fur collar which wrapped around and draped down the front. Leather tooling added embellishments at the wrists and waist.

"So I have to go," continued Sofi. "Val needs me, I dressed nicely, and I don't want to pay that bounty for nothing."

"So how is it that Sofia is dressed for the occasion and you are not?" continued Delphine.

"You know how it is with men," explained Sofi. She crossed her arms and gave me one of those looks which I've seen a million wives give to their husbands in my life since. "He can't be bothered."

"What's wrong with my outfit?" I asked rather loudly.

"There is mud splattered all over the hems of your mage robes, your shoes are scruffy, you forgot to shave, and I'm sure you didn't clean out your ears like I told you," began Sofi.

"Well I didn't exactly have much time with you hogging up the washbasin," I shot back.

"Which was why I told you to wash your ears out last night," she retorted.

"Damn, you were so drunk last night I thought you had forgotten that," I grumbled.

"Even if I had, I noticed it this morning again," she finished. "You were snoring so loudly it woke me up and I had a very nice and up close view of your ear wax issues. _And_ I had a headache. So I had plenty to think about it while I was looking it over."

"Well you're going to have to look the part, Valentine," sighed Delphine. "And part of that is not looking like you have been in a mud wrestling match with the thanes of the nine holds. Which is why I got these items." And she pulled out a very nice set of shoes and formal robes and pants.

It took me another twenty minutes to shave, clean out my ears, and put my new clothes on.

"You should pass for a guest," finished Delphine. "At least until you open your mouth."

Delphine put the rest of my stuff into a chest in a wagon while I and Sofi got into a second wagon. Sofi grabbed my arm and with a 'gee up' to the horse as I snapped the reins, we started off. It had been a while since I had driven a carriage, but the old tricks came back to me as the horse trotted along down the road. The nice thing about horses is that they figure out what they're supposed to do and they do it. You don't have to be constantly paying attention to the direction the horse is going. So I was able to sit back and relax. The chair was cushioned, and so there was some comfort.

"Well," I sighed. "It won't be our wedding party, of which we don't remember, but it will be a very nice and formal party so we can sort of pretend."

"Depends on the quality of the mead," observed Sofi. "If the mead is good enough to merit forgetting what I did at the party, then . . ."

"Sofi?"

"Val? I know my limits. I can have three . . . Or four . . . Maybe up to five . . . bottles."

"Glass," I said. "A glass."

"Val! This is a very fancy party we are going to and if I'm not allowed to get drunk and lose my clothes I . . ."

"Sofi?"

"Damn it, I said that last part out loud didn't I?"

"The horse is blushing," I sighed.

There was silence for a bit as the horses hooves clopped on the cobblestones. It was going to be a few hours before we got to the Embassy and there would be a steady rise in elevation. And as this was Skyrim, there would be snow once we moved into specific areas. There was no getting around it. Skyrim was unnaturally cold in spots and the Thalmor Embassy was in one of those frozen areas. But for now, the sun was out, the trees were showing their colors for the fall, and there was the warmth from the sun's rays.

"So Sofi," I began. "Tell me about your home."

"A cave," she replied.

"Your parents?"

"Crazy," she said. "Funny as in weird, not ha ha. So I lived in cave until I joined the College of Winterhold, then when they kicked me out after that little innovation I introduced to magic, I moved back into caves. How about you?"

Her matter of fact tone about the caves had put all sorts of rich man's guilt on me.

"I grew up in a town house in the Imperial City," I said. "Temple district in fact. My dad is Lord Julian Maximus. My half-brother is Aurelian, and my mother's name is Felicia. I also have two sisters, Irene and Psyche."

"So what did they do to you that made you want to leave?"

"Mother tried to have the Dark Brotherhood assassinate my half-brother so I would inherit," I said with a sigh. "So I left for fear she might find a way to get me to cooperate with that."

"She doesn't need your help to summon the Dark Brotherhood," observed Sofi.

"She does when she's locked up in the attic bedroom," I said. "And dad has taken the props and buried the human remains while selling the rest."

"Your dad locked your mother up?"

"When you are so determined that your son should be the heir that you are willing to make a pact with the dread lord Sithis, yeah," I replied. "I mean it's really hard to kill the woman you love. So dad, instead of killing her or throwing her into prison, kept her in the house. As for me? I had to choose between my half-brother and my mother, and I picked my brother since mom had no right to kill him."

Sofi was quiet for a moment.

"I sort of . . . ran away . . . Because my parents didn't like who I was seeing. They said he was a jerk and I couldn't trust him. So I ran off with him," she said.

"And when you got pregnant, he left you like your mom and dad said he would," I observed.

Sofi simply looked away from me and stared at the cliffs which were passing by. I was getting to know this sort of behavior. When I hit the nail on the head, she would 'run away'.

"When was the last time you saw your parents?" I asked.

"Right after I found out I was pregnant," she replied. "I didn't feel like hanging around while they unloaded the 'I told you so's' and guilt trips so I left," she continued. "Not that I'm missing anything. I never really liked them once I got past puberty. They were always so bitchy with each other. Mom always complaining about dad and dad always putting down mom."

"Sort of like what we do," I mused quietly.

"Yeah," she agreed. There was a bit of ironic smile on her features.

"Of course I'm always telling you that I love you. Did your dad ever tell your mother that?"

Sofi got quiet again for a while. Then after a few moments, she said, "I remember they told each other that when I was really little? Then later on, it was just dad. And then one day, mom said, 'No you don't because if you did you would . . .' and that was the start of a really messy fight. I hid under the bed during it. And dad never told mother he loved her again. That I can remember."

I looked over at her. Above us the road was climbing, we had just taken a very sharp jog in it, and I could see traces of snow on the cliffs above us. "I hope I never stop telling you that I love you," I said. "Unlike your father."

"It's all lies," sighed Sofi. She snuggled up next to me for there was a coolness to the breeze. "But as long as you keep telling them I figure you're going to stay around for a bit longer and I kind of like how you treat me most of the time."

"Most of the time?" I asked.

"You're not the perfect actor," she continued as she looked at my ears, obviously suggesting that I had not cleaned them out like I ought to have. "But you do say things which make me wish I could count on you to be around forever. Like showing me the house you want to buy yesterday. I almost believed you actually meant it. And you let me drink. And you let me make love to you. I mean that's the difference between you and my old boyfriend. He liked making love to me but I just put up with it. I like making love to you and you just put up with it. I didn't know guys could just . . . you know . . ."

"Sofi? Where did you get the idea I don't like making love to you?" I was so utterly surprised at this statement it almost took me a full few seconds to process it.

"There's always one person in the couple that doesn't like it," she argued. "It was me with my old boyfriend and some other woman I talked to confirmed it was something women just had to put up with so when I discovered that it really felt good when I made love to you, I figured you had to be the one who was just putting up with it."

"Well then let me enlighten you," I said with a rather world weary sigh. "When the woman enjoys making love to the guy, it's because the guy is trying to treat her right on all counts. Its when the guy regards the girl as merely an object which he keeps around, like a pet? Then she finds she doesn't enjoy it. When making love, if it's all about the guy, the girl hates it. When the guy makes love and makes it all about the girl? She'll have the time of her life."

"Val?" said Sofi, obviously not believing a word of it. "You have told me I was your first. I was not only the first girl you made love to, but the first girl you kissed. How in oblivion would you know something like that?"

"I had a long talk with my dad on these things when I turned fourteen," I said. "He told me all the important stuff, by that meaning not what goes into where, but why you do it and what it means when you do it."

"Your dad actually talked with you about that?"

"That's what fathers are supposed to do," I replied. "It was kind of hard for him because I was his son, but then he had already told Aurelian a couple of years before so it was a bit easier with me. Of course Aurelian told me all about it when he had the chance, shortly after Dad had talked with him. At the time I thought it was rather unsettling, being that I was only twelve. But when Dad took me aside for 'the talk' when I was fourteen, I was more than ready. And it was a good thing too. It really sobered me up."

Sofi was quiet again for a moment. "Mom never talked about it to me," she sighed. "Said it was a curse and I'd find out soon enough."

"What do you think now?" I asked.

"I'm really torn," she sighed. "On one hand, when we're making love, it feels good and I get all tingly, and then I get relaxed afterwards and you just hold me for almost ever and I feel really safe and secure. But sooner or later I'm not going to get a period, then my waist will gain and inch or two, and you'll call me fat and when I say I'm pregnant . . . I'm not looking forward to that."

"Because that's when I'll leave you," I said rather rhetorically.

"See?" she proclaimed. "You've admitted it."

"No," I said with my temper rising, in part because she was so convinced of that, but likewise because I was such an idiot for actually saying it, knowing what I knew about her. "That's what you say!"

We were both quiet for a moment. A few snowflakes began to fall. I looked over at her. She had such a sad look on her face and at the same time, the snowflakes on her hair added such a magical quality to her. How could a girl that pretty be so messed up? I thought out carefully what I was going to say next.

"I can't wait to be able to prove to you that I won't be leaving you when you get pregnant," I said.

"You are such a good actor," she responded with a bit of grin as she snuggled up a little closer to me.

And that is sort of how we rode into the Thalmor Embassy. The wind had picked up as had the snow fall and so we were a bit chilly. Sofi complained at one point that her nipples were freezing off. Then she insisted that it wasn't her nipples but something which sounded like nipples, and I simply shook my head. Suffice to say we were really glad when we walked into the Embassy. As I had suspected, once I told the guard that Sofia was my wife, the guard took a second to come to a decision, and then let us both in. The Thalmor may be politically obnoxious and tyrannical, but individual Thalmor are just ordinary folk and accordingly, you don't sit there and let something silly like an apparent bureaucratic blunder leave a wife to freeze out in the snow. And especially when her husband makes it clear that if he can't come in without her, he's going home and the guard happens to be a woman. I could tell by her look that she was more than happy to allow me the privilege of bringing my wife in without an invitation for her. And she even gave Sofia one of those 'you are so lucky to have such a man' looks which Sofi completely missed because Sofi did not believe a word of it.

And we were in. And so was Elenwen who promptly greeted us with that elderly aristocratic sounding voice of hers. She observed correctly that we had not met and I promptly gave her my entire family description and dropped the name of the Thalmor Attache in the Imperial City, a fellow named Salmo who's penchant for finding the perfect sweet roll was the fun story all the council like to talk about at the parties. Naturally Elenwen was more than familiar with both Salmo and his sweet roll obsession and so she promptly warmed up to us. She told a pack of lies about how the Empire and the Dominion could bring peace and order to Tamriel and I told a pack of lies about Thalmor enlightenment bringing about a new dawn and in short, we got along swimmingly. Then she asked what brought me to Skyrim and I talked about how my wife and I were planning on moving into Solitude and establishing our family interests in a new locale to compliment our holdings in Cyrodiil and that made perfect sense to her, given my background. She talked business interests for a bit of which I was somewhat familiar with, particularly since I decided to relate it to the arts of which of course I was the expert at. And again, a pack of lies were told by both parties and we left with smiles and hand clasps and promises to do the lunch thing at some future date.

"She's not pretty," observed Sofia. "But she can act."

"I prefer pretty," I replied, smiling at Sofia.

"Of course," she responded. "It's why you're with me."

It was at this point that we ran into a dark haired women who looked to be something around forty.

"I don't recall seeing you before, and I know everyone who's anyone in Skyrim," she said.

"I just came up from Cyrodiil," I smoothly replied. I took an immediate dislike to the woman. Anyone who says they know everyone already is frequently what can charitably described as invincibly ignorant. What bit of Imperial politics I had experienced through my dad suggested a constant state of flux where new personalities were always rising and old powers were fading away. The only person who thinks they know anyone worth knowing, is a person who has already decided who is worth knowing and who is not, and accordingly misses out on a lot of stuff which goes on around them.

"And you are?" queried Sofia, putting on a party smile and trying to smooth things out.

"I don't know who you are, but if you don't want me blowing your cover, I'd advise that you avoid me for the rest of the party."

"It would be a pleasure," I replied smiling and guided Sofi away from the horrible person.

"Let's find out who she is so we can do unspeakable things to her corpse some day," suggested Sofia in a stage whisper, the sort that suggested she likely wouldn't entirely mind if the woman behind us heard.

"Well you know I'll do anything for you," I whispered back. "Because you're so beautiful. So let's ask Jarl Elisif who's standing over there and looking a little lonely."

"That ugly weak willed whiner?"

"What don't you like about Jarl Elisif?"

"The way you looked at her the last time we were in the court."

"She lost her husband whom she loved deeply. Ulfric murdered him. I can't help but feel sorry for her," I replied. "It's not as if she's prettier than you. She comes almost as close, but your eyes are so superior she'll have to resign herself to being second place next to you. So I could understand her not liking you, but why wouldn't you like her?"

"Well I suppose a little chat wouldn't hurt," concluded Sofia.

I greeted the Jarl and she returned the smiles and we were shortly talking about her wistful recollections of when her husband, the former high King Torygg, had taken her to these parties and the fun they would have together. I of course related how broken up I would be if I lost Sofia and the Jarl talked about how I was such a sweetie and Sofia, who remained with a mild skeptical look upon her face, nevertheless warmed up to the idea as Jarl Elisif gushed over it. She then noted that I had helped with the Potema incident and had been very discrete about the whole affair which she had more than appreciated and likewise, Jarl Siddgeir had mentioned to her that I was not afraid to get my hands dirty.

"When there's the right thing to be done," I replied quietly. "Yes, I'll wade through the muck to get it done."

Then she led us over to a corner and we chatted quietly about an offering to Talos which I assured her I would do. In fact I went so far as to tell her that as often as she wished I would make offerings to Talos on her behalf. Elisif then complimented Sofia on her outfit and Sofia promptly opened up and chatted with her about 'girl stuff' and that, as par for the course, included a few complaints about how slovenly I could dress. Elisif then took the opportunity to recollect some of High King Toryggs' favorite outfits which she had hated. Sofia managed to find out that it was Maven Black Briar who was threatening to blow our cover and then complained about her snobby attitude and Jarl Elisif was more than a little in agreement with that. All the while I will confess I was making surreptitious glances over to where the Blackest of the Black Briars was seated and as I suspected, she remained oblivious to the fact that we were clearly playing the very dear friends game with Jarl Elisif. And the thing that makes the very dear friends game so sweet, is that you invariably end up with a very dear friend as a result.

I was also looking at Malborn and he was getting more and more nervous as the time slipped on. We ended up spending about three quarters of an hour with Jarl Elisif and finally I decided to come clean and shared with her the reason why we were at the party. Her eyes went wide with amazement for while she had heard often enough of skullduggery and undercover during meetings with her advisors, she had never been 'in on' a mission. So when I suggested we would be shortly trying to swing a distraction, she smiled and suggested she might help out when the time came.

It took another fifteen minutes before we were able to find the appropriate patsy.

"What does a fellow need to do to get a drink around her?" asked the patsy, I mean Razelan.

"Sofi?" I said. "That's your department."

"How did you?" She began and then with a rather weary "Fine!" she reached into her side pocket which had turned out to be rather deep and pulled out a very nice bottle of Honningbrew which probably had been on the table to our left when we had gotten to the party. There was a faint clink when she pulled it out.

"And the other one," I said.

She sighed and handed that one over to him as well.

"And the other one," I said. I had no clue if she did or didn't but I had my suspicions.

She gave me one of those looks which suggests my precognition skills had reached legendary status and sure enough, she got out a third bottle of Honningbrew from the other pocket.

"I was curious why that glass of mead you had been holding for the entire party never seemed to be empty," I added.

As for Razelan he was praising us as the two generous souls amongst a gathering of pinch-pennies and lickspittles.

"If there's anything I can do for you," he suggested. "Do not hesitate to call upon me!"

"Actually," I started, pretending that I had just come up with the idea. "There is something you could do for me and Sofi."

"Wonderful!" he said. "I can begin to repay your generosity immediately. Say on, friend."

I first looked over to Jarl Elisif who noticed my glance. I winked to her and she gave me a little girl grin. She was looking forward to this, not that I blamed her. There is something horribly dull about having to be the proper lady all the time. You can't just let loose and be only a little silly without everyone in the Hold talking about it and concluding political things as a result.

"I need you to cause a scene. Get everyone's attention for a few minutes."

"Is that all? My friend, you've come to the right person. You could say that causing a scene is somewhat of a speciality of mine."

Under the right circumstances I would have introduced him to Sofia as a fellow traveler, but I needed her to be with me when the scene was caused.

"Stand back," said Razelan. "And behold my handiwork."

He stood up and walked into the exact center of the room and shouted "Attention everyone! Could I have your attention please? I have an announcement to make. I propose a toast to Elenwen, our mistress!"

Sofi and I began to slip towards Malborn as this went on. I really hated to miss out on the fun, but we had a job to do and it was a bit more important than watch Razelan, with all the acumen, skill, and panache of a well honed professional, make an ass of himself. It takes a special kind of person to be able to take pride in being able to do that.

"I speak figuratively of course. Nothing could be more unlikely than that someone would actually want her in their bed," he proceeded.

"Oh man this is going to be good," I sighed. Then I turned to Malborn and he surreptitiously opened the door to the embassy kitchen.

"Although . . . most of you are already in bed with her, but again . . . I speak figuratively, of course," he continued.

We were at the door. I really wanted to see this play out, but Malborn was getting horribly agitated and we had to move. So we slipped away.

Actually, I did get a good blow by blow of the entire distraction since Jarl Elisif was more than happy to regale the event with us at a dinner party we would one day attend with her. It was her first and only adventure and she loved to tell the story. Apparently the moment the guards walked up and began to 'settle' Razelan down she promptly accused Maven of bringing Razelan in her party. Maven of course had huffily denied it and Elisif then suggested she was a liar as well since it was well known that only she would have people in her company who would suggest that Elenwen was nothing but a whore and with what should have been a tour de force, but turned out to have unforeseen consequences, she suggested that Maven was the sort who would be probably hiding a shrine to Talos in the Ratway. Now I said it should have been a tour de force because everyone who had any connection to the Empire's intelligence network would know that there were rumors of Maven's involvement with the Thieves Guild and they were supposed to be headquartered in Riften's Ratway. Thalmor agents poking around Riften and under it's sewers would have been more than just trouble for the Thieves Guild. But wait, there's more. The Jarl of Riften was more than eager to clean up any hints of corruption in the town, but likewise, she was also a Stormcloak in ideology. I had to admit, Jarl Elisif knew exactly where to poke the stick into the hornet's nest. That was going to prove to be one very messy three ring circus.

But as for me and Sofia, we slipped through the kitchen, and into the pantry where our stuff was stored. We changed out of our party clothes, put on our mage robes and armor, though I will admit I took advantage of Sofia in her underclothes and gave her a few romantic kisses and caresses before I let her get her armor on, and then with our left hands casting muffle, and our right hands lifting invisibility potions to our mouths, we vanished out of sight and commenced to explore the Thalmor Embassy.

Given all the sneaking around we had done, while I wouldn't say it was old hat, we did manage to avoid the guards for the most part. Sofia however did grumble when we got up to Elenwen's room. She had been looking for a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid which she was certain was a classy piece of intellectually stimulating literature. Or at least stimulating. She had tried several times to get a used copy but the covers were always worn and the pages were always sticking together and she was convinced there was some sort of conspiracy about it. When she failed to find it in Elenwen's bedroom she was a bit put out and grumbled in a faint whisper for most of the second story reconnaissance.

It was when we got into the Solar's basement that we hit pay dirt. But likewise this was where the brawl began and we ended up killing four guards and two Thalmor officials before it was all over with. But we did manage to rescue a citizen of Riften and likewise save Malborn from being tortured as a double agent for the moment Elenwen noticed our absence, she put two and two together quickly enough. It's always a pain when your opponents are smart enough to figure out that you're the one who needs killing. Then there was that annoying troll in the cave just below the embassy.

But we got out okay and started walking down the road towards Riverwood where we would be meeting up with Delphine, our packs filled with all sorts of Thalmor intelligence records.

"It's going to be a long walk back to Riverwood," observed Sofia.

"Yep," I agreed. "We had to leave the carriage behind at the Embassy, and then the Thalmor investigate that, they'll find Delphine's fingerprints all over the operation."

"That was perfectly good Honningbrew you gave to that jerk," continued Sofia.

"It was what you had slipped into your pockets," I replied. "Had you gotten the ordinary stuff, that would have been what we gave him. But when we get to Dragon's Bridge, it will be time to retire for the night, how about I buy you a few more bottles, along with a nice meal, and we get the room with the double bed?"

"No singing for our room and board?" asked Sofia. "What's the occasion?"

"We got out of there alive and you were looking really pretty in your underwear when we were in the pantry," I replied. "Is that good enough for you? And likewise you let me admire you for a moment and you didn't call me a pervert."

"Well I did wake up married to you almost two weeks ago," she admitted. "That does carry with it certain privileges, not to mention I've been spending a lot of time with you wearing a little bit less."

"True enough," I replied. "And you've not cast that spell on me recently either."

"I don't need it," she replied with a bit of a saucy grin. "And I figure if I'm not careful, you'll learn it and cast it back on me. That could be very embarrassing if you time it wrong."

"Would the timing be wrong tonight after we retire to the room?" I asked grinning back.

Sofia actually blushed. Not that I intended to cast it. It's funner undressing them with your fingers, or at least I think so, and besides, I didn't know the spell yet. But if Sofia thought I did?

Yeah, tonight was going to be one of the good nights. Maybe, just maybe a few more of these and she would finally admit that we were the perfect couple and things would be resolved. Maybe these reports we had snagged would solve the Dragon problem. And maybe Elenwen and the Thalmor would not conclude I was worth the effort to track down and deal with.

And then again, maybe one of these days I'd be less naive.


	10. Chapter 10 - A Song For Riften

"When people think of wood elves, they usually think of trees. But not me. I'm a little too embarrassed to say what comes to mind."

We were on the road from Riverwood to Riften. Arriving in Riverwood, we had retired to Delphine's secret headquarters. Yes, she actually had a secret headquarters. I can't make this stuff up people, remember when I said that the truth is stranger than fiction? That's why when you tell what really happened, you seldom, if ever, have to embellish. What the information we had been able to glean from the Thalmor reports told us two things. First, the Thalmor were just as mystified as we were about the dragons. No surprise there. The second thing was that Esbern, an old blade who had been one of the scholars of the organization was still alive and probably hiding in Riften. He might know something about the dragons, and likewise, after he had told the Thalmor everything they wanted to know, they would kill him. We had to get him before the Thalmor did. Of course at this time we had no idea what Jarl Elisif had said at the party and what was now happening in Riften and the Ratway.

"So," continued Sofi looking at me with a bit of an impish smile on her features. "What do you think about when you think of wood elves?"

I pondered for a moment. I was going to tell the truth and damn the consequences because it was something in the long term, Sofi would appreciate.

"I think of you," I replied.

"Are you saying my ears and chin are too long?" was her first response.

"Sofi? If I said you were the most beautiful woman in the world . . ."

"Yes?" she was more than willing to encourage this line of thinking.

"And your ears and chin were as long as a wood elf's . . ." No response. "Wouldn't that simply be one of the reasons why I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world?"

"No," she replied. "Because if I had a chin and ears as long as a wood elf's, I couldn't possibly be the most beautiful woman in the world because I wouldn't be looking like me."

"Your methods of reasoning to a conclusion never cease to astound me," I suggested.

"Even though that sounds like a very intellectual compliment why do I keep thinking there's an insult hidden in there somewhere?"

"Just your imagination," I lied.

"So why do wood elves make you think of me then?" Her curiosity was definitely up.

"There were these three wood elf sisters who lived in the docks district of the Imperial City," I began. "And they were all really cute. But Carwen was the cutest of the three. And they worked on and off at our house helping with the cleaning and cooking and stuff. I really wanted to kiss that girl. But she was so cute I was convinced she already had a guy and I couldn't stand the thought of being rejected so I dithered and did nothing, even when she started smiling at me every time I walked by and laughed at all my jokes."

"She sounds like a tramp," was Sofia's suggestion. The jealousy was starting to rise in her, but I plowed on ahead.

"But of course that was when mother started asking me to find a source of nightshade for the Night Mother Ritual and I started refusing and she started putting out the 'guilt' trips because I wasn't willing to work to advance myself. Warned me I would end up a dead in a ditch since Aurelian would find me a threat to his position. So I had to inform my dad what mom was planning and had to leave. So I never got to kiss Carwen."

"Poor baby," suggested Sofia with not so much of a hint of a trace of sympathy.

"Well there I was with Helgen burning around me and I was thinking I was going to die as I was running to the tower. And what kept going through my head was how I never got enough of a nerve to try to have a relationship with Carwen."

Sofia was looking straight ahead and frowning. Her feet started to slap the cobblestones.

"So," I went on. "Nearly a week later, I walk into this stable outside of Whiterun and I see a woman even more beautiful asleep in the hay and once again part of me was saying she was too pretty to be single, but you know? I could still remember that I thought like that with Carwen so I said to myself . . . 'Self? You are not going to let this woman slip you by because you didn't have the nerve.' And so I walked up to her and asked her if I might share her hay pile. And you know who that woman was?"

"You have a lot of nerve suggesting that a tramp inspired you to come up to me in that stable!"

"Sofia, how in oblivion can you be jealous of a woman who I knew before I even knew you? One whom I'll never see again anyway? What is wrong with Carwen?"

"She's a Bosmer tramp!"

"Oh, will you can the Nord racism for a single moment and think about what I'm really saying?"

"Nord Racism? As if that isn't a racist statement right there? Just because I don't like Bosmer, or Altmer, or Dunmer, or Orcs, or Argonians, or Kahjiit, or Bretons, or Imperials . . ." Sofi paused looking at me. I was crossing my arms and shaking my head while trying not to grin. There simply was something funny about her inability to not express vocally what she was thinking. "Damn it, I always end up upsetting someone," she grumbled.

"Allright, hand over your valuables or I'll gut you like a fish!" came a new voice into our general perception.

Sofi and I turned to face the new voice, that being an Argonian bandit.

"Do you mind?" I asked, facing the bandit. "I'm having an intimate loving romantic heart to heart fight with my wife. Besides, we're obviously bards. Do we really look like we have any money on us?"

"Yes," replied the Argonian. "You look like you are lousy with gold. I am not going to ask again . . ."

And he didn't for a single 'Fus Do Rah' from me and Ice Bolt to his head from my darling Sofi sent him flying back fifty feet.

"Did I ever tell you how much I love you when you put huge chucks of ice into the skulls of annoying Argonians?" I asked.

"You lie about that all the time," she replied.

I swatted her on the backside for that remark.

"I don't know what gets into you," sighed Sofia.

"Sofi?" I continued. "I simply can not understand why you are so jealous of every single woman that has the singular misfortune to blunder into our lives. Seriously now, a Bosmer maid I happened to know before you? One whom I specifically stated was not as pretty as you? Who's going around proclaiming herself the most beautiful woman in Skyrim? Who has openly argued that there's hardly anyone in Skyrim who would even be worthy to stand against her in a beauty contest? And given that I have no argument with that fact. Given that I for one happen to agree that you are the most beautiful woman in Skyrim, would it not stand to reason that before I met you I simply didn't know any better? Of course I'll be attracted to a Bosmer, I didn't know Sofia!"

"I HATE IT when you get rational on me!" she snapped.

"Sofi Sofi Sofi," I said pulling her into a gentle hug. "Don't you realize that it's not half as important that every guy in Skyrim thinks your drop dead gorgeous as it is that the guy who loves you thinks your drop dead gorgeous?"

"Well yeah," she sighed. "If I had such a guy."

Since I was hugging her, she did not see me look skyward and roll my eyes. You know? It was at this juncture that it dawned on me that she could say these things that had, before we had accidentally ended up married, put me into such an emotional roller coaster. Now, for some reason or another, I could hear these things and it didn't mess me up any more. I wondered about that for years really. And the conclusion I reached is that there's this surety in marriage which you don't find anywhere else. It kind of nails things down in a way that makes it easier to put up with all the lunacy the other person exhibits that would put you on a milk soaked bread diet for the rest of your life if you were still single. She was firmly convinced I would leave her, but I knew she wouldn't leave me. And so it didn't matter that her mouth was forged and locked to the thinking part of her brain. Her entire range of physical gestures said she was going to stay with me until that day when I, not her, threw her over my shoulder and walked away. So while I remained ignorant of this facet of the relationship with her at that juncture, my emotions were not yanking my chain. I was beginning to see some of the humor in the behavior which today enables me to look back and laugh.

"Dibilla?" I silently prayed. "Why did you do this to me? Why did you give me the most beautiful whacked out woman in all of Skyrim for me to fall utterly and entirely in love with?"

"One of these days, Sofi," I began standing back, putting my hands on her shoulders and looking into those deep lovely big baby blue eyes of hers. "I'm going to come up with a way to prove to you that I really do love you and when you realize that it's true, YOU are going to throw the biggest temper tantrum in the world."

"Even if that was the case, which it isn't, you'll never see it," was her defiant answer.

We walked on in silence for a bit. The towers and masts of Riften began to be seen though the trees and shortly thereafter we came up to the north gate.

"Halt," began the guard. "Before you enter, you'll have to pay the visitors tax."

"The what?" I asked. "What is a visitors tax for?"

"For the privilege of entering the city."

"This is such a shakedown!" began Sofia

"Alright alright, keep your voice down, I'll open the gate," grumbled the guard.

And the gate opened on our destiny. Yeah, that's really troweling it on, I know, but Sofia and I had no clue how this day was going to end. And quite frankly it was a day I've never forgotten. And so now that I'm relating it, each and every detail seems to stand out and play itself out over and over again in my mind.

We barely got into the town when we passed another tall Nord woman in banded armor and a large weapon on her back while another guy was busy saying the sorts of things Nord guys say to women they are in the process of falling in love with. Then a bearded 'tough' guy by the name of Maul told us there was nothing to see in the town and to keep moving. A few choice questions later and I had learned enough of the town to know that there was more to things than met the eye. I bluffed him into thinking I was the sort of guy who might make his fortune in the town, and not in a hard working honest manner either, and he was more than informative. One of the fun things about being a Bard is that you learn how to act really well. We walked on, tried to ignore the girl who was shaking down a young naive Redguard, and found ourselves in the town plaza where I was bluntly informed by an Alchemist that I had not earned my money honestly. I didn't have a chance to comment on that one since Sofia suggested which orifice he could store his Falmer blood elixir in.

We walked into the Bee and Barb Inn, waited for the Priest, who's name was Maramal, to finish his ranting sermon on the evils of alcohol before the chief waiter, an Argonian named Talen-Jei, suggested to Maramal that everyone in the bar just wanted to sin in peace. I shook my head.

"Why would anyone think that mead is the problem?" I muttered. "Especially as the reason why the dragons flying about."

"You know," mused Sofia. "If the dragons are back because we're drinking too much mead? Imagine what's going to happen when we actually start to kill each other."

"Maramal needs to rethink a few things," I agreed.

Keerava was the bar tender. She too was Argonian. I walked up to her and arranged a three hour set of music. Then Sofia and I walked over to the center of room, I pulled out my lute and she got out the flute she had been learning to master these past few weeks. And we started out with a popular song titled The Age of Aggression. We employed the pro-Ulfric verses and the crowd began to warm up to us quite quickly. By the end of thirty minutes, we had more than a few of the listeners dancing about the tavern and some of the choruses were rousing enough that people could hear the merriment outside and came in. Naturally they stayed to listen and then purchased drinks. Sofia would switch from drum to flute and back again while I stayed on the lute and sang all the songs I had collected. And to top it off, I added at the end, a collection of love songs. And then I changed the routine just a little. Instead of singing to the audience, I began to sing to Sofia. And after a moment, Sofia began to blush. The audience picked up on that and there were more than a few "awes" and "That's so sweet" coming from them because of course, while Sofia might have denied the sincerity, the audience could see it straight. It was a good gig. And when we finished the crowd began to chant "one more song!" and so we gave in an let them have a final re-singing of the Pro-Ulfric Age of Aggression.

I walked back to Keerava while Sofia snagged a bottle of mead from Talen-Jei and sat at the table and began to drink it and unwind.

"That was a good performance," she started with. "I've sold more drinks in the last three hours than I usually sell in a week. You've more than earned your beds."

"Beds?" I asked. "You haven't got a double for me and my wife?"

"That's your wife you sang the love songs to and meant it?" she gasped.

I chuckled. "'friad so," I continued. "I am cursed to be madly in love with my wife."

Keerava sighed. "I have no double beds," she said. "And neither does the bunkhouse. Not that Haelga would want the competition."

I looked at Keerava with a completely mystified expression.

"It's a religious thing," suggested Keerava. "She's fond of Dibella."

"Ah," I said. "Say no more. Anyway, there's an old fellow named Esbern who's supposed to be hiding out in Riften. He's in serious danger from the Thalmor and I need to get him to safety."

Keerava looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"The Thalmor are looking for him too," she observed. "So why would I not think you are an agent of theirs."

"You could ask Ulfric," I replied. "He was standing right there when I made my vow to live and breath a Stormcloak."

"You made a vow?" asked Keerava.

"Until my head flies off my body," I replied.

I was telling the truth and she knew it.

"I've never seen him," she said. "But then again, I've never seen an Imperial Stormcloak. But if he's hiding, it will be in the Ratway."

I nodded.

"But I don't know how lucky you'll be," she continued. "A few days ago the Thalmor came in and started sending groups into the Ratway. Maven Black Briar has been throwing fits and the Jarl, Laila Law-Giver has been sending patrols down as well to get rid of the Thieves Guild which the Thalmor claim are interfering with their own hunts for a so called Shrine of Talos. Nura Snow-Shod, the priestess of Talos, has been in hiding for five days now."

"I have no problem with Maven being upset," I suggested. "In fact I have no problem with her being so upset she has a rupture in the brain and spends the rest of her days drooling in a corner."

"She's in bed with Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood," whispered Keerava. "So the Jarl and Thalmor are both finding more than a little dirt on her. Of course Dark Brotherhood assassins have already shown up a couple of times to kill Thalmor which has led to the Jarl being even more determined to get to the bottom of the corruption and given that most of her advisors are on the take . . ."

"Okay, the Ratway is crawling with all sorts of people I'm probably going to have to incinerate when I get Esbern out," I sighed. "Tell me when the traffic is low."

"Night," replied Keerava with a rather Captain Obvious expression on her face.

"No vampires down there?" I asked.

"That's on Mondas," answered Keerava with the Argonian equivalent of a smile. She looked at me with a certain intense curiosity. "Just how important is Esbern to Ulfric?"

"Not just Ulfric," I said. "To all of Tamriel. It's thought he knows why the dragons are coming back."

She nodded. "I know nothing," she said. "I don't know who you are, and I don't know where you are, and I don't for a moment imagine you are sleeping upstairs with your wife. And I'll have Talen-Jei move a second bed into the larger bedroom for your lovely wife with the very high alcohol tolerance."

"You noticed?"

"She's on her second bottle already," finished Keerava. "Hey, I'm a professional bar keeper, we know these things."

I nodded, walked over to Sofia, who, knowing the body language of departure, drained the bottle in a single fluid motion. It was rather an interesting experience to watch since her head went up, the bottle was almost entirely upside down, and it was as if there was a full and unobstructed passageway from her mouth to her stomach. I saw no indication that she was swallowing in the least.

"That's a very amazing skill you have there," I said.

"Yes," she said with a smile. "It is."

I began to explain the situation to her.

"Of course there are some bandits in the sewers. What next? A secret hideout? Oh wait!"

I nodded and she gave me one of those "I so expected this because it sucks to be Sofia" expressions.

I took her out and noticed that the sun was low in the horizon. There was going to be some time left before it got dark enough to head into the Ratway. We started walking about looking at things. And there it was, Honorhall Orphanage. I looked at Sofia. There was the strangest look on her face. And then it hit me.

"I know what I can do to prove to you that not only do I love you, but I'll be with you forever," I said.

Her eyes widened just a bit and she began to raise her hand to her mouth. It was entirely unexpected since it was as if she were afraid.

"What?" she asked with more air than voice.

"I'll adopt the baby you had by your old boyfriend," I said. "This is the only orphanage in Skyrim as far as I know. This is where you put him isn't it?"

"Her," whimpered Sofia.

"Her, then. Let's go." I turned to open the door.

"Valentine . . . She's not there."

"Why? Is she already adopted?"

"Valentine . . . She wasn't adopted either."

"Sofia? What happened to your daughter?"

There was a very silent whisper. It was as if some horrible doom was falling upon her for speaking the words. "Aconite and wine, it terminates the pregnancy."

I realized I had finally discovered the reason why she hated herself so much.

"You killed your child," I observed. You say that was uncaring? On the contrary, the truth is often ugly on the surface. I knew exactly what I was doing.

"I terminated the pregnancy," she nearly shrieked.

"No!" I raised my voice. "You Killed Your Baby!"

"So you're going to be just like my parents and start with the guilt trip thing?" she shouted.

"Guilt trip? Me?" I nearly bellowed. "Girl, you got on that wagon months ago and have been traveling on the five star package for so long you have done ARRIVED!"

"If I hadn't done it I would be with my parents raising the girl and you Never Would Have Met Me!"

"And if my ancestor had, I never would have existed and you would be living in a cave so it evens out doesn't it!"

"I didn't want it to end like this!" she screamed.

"End?" I said. "I'll show you an end!"

And I dived and slammed my shoulder into the joint were her hips met her legs and with a single thrust from my legs and straightening my back, I actually managed to lift her up and proceeded to walk down the boardwalk, my arms firmly wrapped around her thighs while she beat my back and backside with her fists screaming that everyone was staring at us and it wasn't her fault and so on and so forth.

Two guardsmen of course were almost immediately on the scene. Funny how they never show up when it's a thief with a knife.

"Dramatic argument between a Dragonborn and his wife," I said calmly while Sofia was screaming all sorts of horrible fates she was going to inflict upon me the moment I put her down. "Nothing to see here."

I will admit, for all the corruption in Riften, these guards did have the professional acumen to know they were simply witnessing a somewhat loud domestic dispute and as no blood was being shed, they left well enough alone. I reached the Temple of Mara and with a single thrust by my right leg, pushed the door open and walked in. Sofia's screaming and threats were now reaching a state which could be charitably described as piercing and all three priests and priestesses were staring at us and no doubt wondering how I had managed to get here without the guards stopping us. With a single fluid motion I swung her around and somewhat irreligiously dumped her in front of the icon of Mara. A single thrust with my arms put her on her knees.

Now I will freely admit that throughout this entire fracas, she easily could have blasted my face off and made a run for it. The fact that she was both vocally potent while at the same time physically impotent told me that on some level she knew I was doing the right thing. But being that she was Sofia, she was not going down without a fight.

"Say you're sorry," I said pointing to the icon of Mara. "Say you're sorry and have it over with."

She was breathing heavily. She was straining just a little against my pressure on her shoulders, but she remembered the dragon mound, and she knew I would not let up. It took a moment but then, like a single dead groan, slowly released, it came out. "I'm sorry." Followed by a sort of world weary sigh that suggested that now that it was over with could she go?

I waited about five seconds before the explosion I knew would come, that first huge body shuddering sob of grief. And then the flood gates were opened and it all came out . . .

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msosorryMaraI'msorryI'msorry."

And she cried and cried and cried as all that so long suppressed deep regret was finally given the freedom to vent out. And all the while I just wrapped my arms around her shoulders and held her while her body spasmed with the emotions.

After a moment, the Priest Maramal came up and knelt in front of Sofia who looked up at him with tear soaked eyes.

"Mara didn't tell me what you had done," he said quietly. "But she made it very clear to me that I was to tell you that she had forgiven you."

That's the nice thing about the Gods. There's of course the sentimental tripe about how the Gods will forgive the penitent who crawls in on their knees, but few ever fully appreciate that level of forgiveness which even accepts the penitent who is hauled kicking and screaming to the altar.

I waited a moment for Sofia to collect herself and then helped her up and holding her next to me we started to walk out of the temple. She was leaning against me in a longing sort of fashion that seemed as if she was trying to make a memory. We got out of the temple and she turned to face me.

"I wish it could have gone on longer," she sighed. "I really liked being with you. But of course now that you know who I really am, you know I wouldn't be a good mother for your children and you deserve that, Valentine. You deserve a woman who can do that for you, Valentine, so much. I can't give it so . . ."

"Sofia," I began. "What in oblivion are you trying to do?"

She looked at me with her mouth somewhat open.

"What did Mara just do in there?" I asked pointing back at the temple with my other hand fisted on my hip.

"She forgave me but . . ."

"And why wouldn't I?"

"But you're the Dragonborn . . ."

"And that makes me bigger than a God or Goddess?" I snorted. "Sofi who in oblivion do you think made the Dragonborn if not the Gods? Oh yeah, big whoop I'm the Dragonborn, I'm the big chick magnet and all the young boys want to be me but next to the Gods? I held my finger and thumb as close as I could. "I'm that big and that's only a fraction bigger than every other Human and Mer in Tamriel."

I looked into those wonderful eyes of hers and for the first time ever I saw something I had never seen before in them. I saw hope. It was small. It was just a spark. But it was trying very hard to burst into a bright burning fire.

"Mara isn't called Mother Mara out of sentiment," I continued. "If the Goddess of Mothers is ready to accept you back into the fold then who am I to deny you? I love you Sofia. And I know you'll do your damnedest to be the best mother a guy could hope for, even more so now that you've got something to prove to the world."

It was still there, but it hadn't blossomed yet. I waited to see what was holding it back.

"Well," she said somewhat hesitantly. "You just might have a chance to prove that sooner than you think because my period right now is twelve days late."

Have you ever ridden a white stallion over a hill, dressed in shimmering silver armor, and holding aloft a golden flaming sword, kind of like Dawnbreaker? Have you ever charged down that hill on that stallion and seen an army of orcs flee before you and in the middle of that terrified hoard, ride up, and with a single swing of your singing blade, break a chain that frees a beautiful princess dressed in shimmering sky blue gossamer silk? Have you, with a single grasp of a hand, pulled her into the saddle and ridden off singing into the sunset?

You haven't? Me neither.

But I sure as oblivion felt like I had.

"Well," I said with a smile watching that hope burst into joy. "It's a little too early to celebrate with certainty but I don't care. Let's get Esbern out of the Ratway, then secure him in an upstairs room at the Bee and Barb, and then just in case you need to start eating for two, I'm going to buy you the biggest most drowned in rich brown gravy meat pie they've got and there will be three, count 'em three, bottles of Black Brier Reserve to go with it."

"Well," she said with one of the biggest spiciest grins I had ever seen on any woman, let alone Sofia. "Okay, but you forgot dessert."

"What do you want for dessert?" I asked with a completely faked world weary groan. She was still Sofia when it came down to it.

"You upstairs, in our bedroom, under me, seriously getting raped hard."

"Well," I replied struggling to sound very intellectual about it in spite of the fact that I really wanted to just giggle in a corner somewhere like a little girly-girl. "First of all, girls can't rape guys. Second of all, you can't rape the willing."

"You think just because I'm your wife you can tell me what to do? Well think again!"

Loving Sofia, it's a dirty thankless job but somebody's got to do it. I gave her a one armed hug and we started walking towards the stairs that would take us down to the canal boardwalk where the Ratway was supposed to be. And as we always did, there was the checklist to make sure we were ready for the jaunt.

"Sofia? Enchanted Scale Armor?"

"Check," she said.

"Ring of Enchanted Sword Fighting?"

"Check."

"Silver Circlet of Frost Resistance?"

"Check, Valentine?"

"What?"

"We've done this a million times, and I see no reason why we won't come out of this like we've done in the past, but, just in case everything goes south, there's something I want you to know."

"What?"

"I Love You So Damn Much."

And you know? I'm okay with that.

* * *

><p><strong>And so Volume One comes to an end. I started this in August and it remained a single chapter for over a month before I started chapter two. Then it languished for several days because I had no clue what I was going to do after chapter three. Then everything about the Sofia personality clicked and I realized what I was dealing with, the thing that made the character both funny and trouble at the same time. The trick was coming up with a deep dark secret which would be the clue to Sofia's self-hatred. And if you think abortion doesn't have that impact on some women just google Abortion Regret and you'll find two million hits.<strong>

**So why did I feel the need to add a backstory? In the creative process, there is this thing which all creators have to do, be they authors like me, or mod builders like Jarvis, and that's called engineering. Those decisions you make about what you will and will not work on. For example, if you have read my other two fan fics, Shining Bright or Silvered Dancer, the plot of the game is always secondary to the story of the characters to which I am relating. Most people who never get something accomplished creatively are those who will not make those 'hard' decisions about what will and what will not be worked on. You see, once you decide to paint a morning sky, you've just lost the ability to paint an evening, afternoon, or night sky.**

**Jarvis has spent his hard earned time making Sofia alive and humorous by the comments she makes on the events and places to which the character experiences or visits. However we know very little of her backstory. This is not a criticism by the way. Backstories require Christine's acting skills which means she has to spend time voicing the lines and Jarvis has to program that as well. And that adds to the size of the mod. There's this thing called real life and time. I get to write because I have time in which no one comes into my store, and since it's my store, I can do with the time what I like. No one is going to fire the boss you see.  
><strong>

**And a backstory is what I have to work with in order to write a believable romance. Fortunately, thanks to the comments Sofia makes, coupled with her various behaviors, she reminded me of three girls I had dated once upon a time. Two of them very much so, and a third somewhat less so. And while I don't know Sofia's full backstory, I did learn the backstory of those three RL women and those backstories became the grist for the Sofia backstory mill. So if some of the drama and past history of Sofia shocks or amazes or horrifies you, remember, there are three RL women who's youth directly contributed to it. Yes, these things really do happen and people really do respond in these ways 'cause I was there when it happened. Or at least was there to pick up the pieces afterwards.**

**I thought I would pass on some information on the three women I got the backstory for Sofia from. I do this because not all of you reading this will be reading it just for entertainment. By telling people where I get my ideas, I hopefully will help younger writers get more in grip as it were.**

**The first was sixteen when the dirty dark thing happened to her. Her older sister was sleeping around and the sweet sixteen was filled with idealism and called her, after one particular nasty argument, a slut. Well older sister gets one of her sophisticated guy friends who was 25 to agree to a little tete a tete. Well thanks to a bit of cunning and treachery, the 16 year old goes on a date with the 25 year old, not of course really knowing how this guy suddenly became interested in her. By the end of the evening, she's lost her virginity and feels like crap. She spent two years with the guy, who got increasingly abusive both physically and emotionally, because she was convinced this was what she deserved. I got to know her shortly after she ended this relationship and she was still on the recovery while we were dating in college. It was bad enough that her sister set her up like that, but the guy was breaking the law and committing a felony in the state where it happened back once upon a time. She has recovered and has her happily ever after. **

**The second girl had an older sister happily married and a younger brother scoring so high in school that it was certain he was going on to be a doctor. And he did too. And as this was not the US, this was more than a feather in the cap of the family. Only 5% of that country's population ever goes to college and it's by invitation only. She on the other hand, partied her way through high school and was accomplishing nothing outside of being able to look tough riding a motorcycle. Then she moves in with a boyfriend who's supposed to be sterile and gets pregnant. But being just 16, and already engaged in not a little denial, she went on a serious starvation diet trying to lose the weight since it couldn't be pregnancy. Well she miscarried. Her solution? A lot of marijuana. She was the one who got pinned down (in her grandmother's back yard as opposed to a Skyrim Dragon Mound) because of course she was firmly convinced she was unlovable and so the guy was obviously lying. Now mind you this was a woman who had several professional photographers trying to get her to model. They too were obviously lying so that was a seriously high profile career she threw away. She had not, when I last spoke with her, recovered from her self-loathing.**

**Last girl? Simply a divorcee who had the misfortune of marrying a guy who thought he was a poet, and therefore superior to the common man, and to her. As a former professional writer, I can assure you he was not. She dealt with the emotional abuse by heavy drinking which of course only depressed her further. When I dated her there were so many walls up that we were never able to communicate. There was one thing she said about her relationship with her first husband which I have never forgotten. "I was gobbling the birth control pills." She too has recovered and has her happily ever after a few blocks down the street from me.**

**Both men and women suffer from self-loathing usually when something triggers a serious guilt reaction. The sexes respond in different fashions but if the matter is not recognized and dealt with properly, the person will, over time, self-destruct. Most young men however, have no clue how to deal with these issues when encountering them in young girls and so Valentine had to be just naive enough to want to love this woman and at the same time be wise enough to know what had to be done when he finally found out what was really at the bottom of Sofia's behavior. It helped of course, that he simply could not take himself too seriously.**

**The guilt trip line of Valentine at the climax of the story actually comes from an African-American Folk tale which was told among the free blacks of the south prior to the civil war. The idiom I borrowed in it's true form is "He's been on the road to trouble his whole life and he has done arrived!" One of the things that people don't realize is that before the civil war, the free blacks did not have to deal with segregation since no southerner thought twice about their free black neighbors living across the street from them. And some of them even owned slaves themselves. And many southerners were firmly convinced that as the free black population was increasing at a faster rate than the slave population, it was only a matter of time before slavery died out in the south. Thus there was a very rich African-American culture dating from that time it was for the most part lost in the great northern migration which took place starting in the 1950's and ending in the early 70's. Another favorite idiom of mine which comes from the African-Americans is this, "He's so still the fleas are falling off his body."**

**Valentine is a Roman name from the second and third century and was the name of several prominent Romans, even one Imperator. But most of us remember Valentine the Bishop who sent little hearts to his congregation encouraging them during one of the great persecutions of Christianity. He became a saint in the Catholic Calendar and is celebrated on February 14th. Of course most of you know the day by it's more popular secular festivities. Florian is also a Roman name from the same time. Since the Empire in Tamriel has many Roman qualities, I picked two Roman names for my hero. Sofia is an ancient Greek name and it means wisdom. **

**And so we go on to Volume 2.**


	11. Chapter 11 - A Song For Serana

"Valentine?" Sofia was whispering in my ear. "We need to talk."

I tried to think about pretending to be deeply asleep but she was snuggled up next to me with her hand on my heart and her head on my shoulder and it would be seen through immediately.

"It's still dark out there, Sofi," I sighed. "The wind is blowing. There's snow falling. Why can't it wait until morning."

"Because this is the only time we can talk about it, Valentine," she persisted in that low whisper in my ear.

Now if you are familiar with my prior tales of my adventures in Skyrim with Sofia, you will no doubt remember that my friends call me Val and I often call Sofia, Sofi. She likes being called Sofi but she insists on calling me Valentine because it's easier to say than "I love you" because when she says that I don't say "What?" I say "I love you too." and that means she can't talk about what it is she wants to talk about.

Back in the Imperial City there was this book store where you could buy a copy of a book titled, "What Men Know About Women" which was filled with blank pages.

Suffice to say, ever since Sofia has been honest enough to admit that she loves me, she has been calling me Valentine. I don't mind really. She has such a nice way of saying it.

I pulled the sleeping fur bag around us a bit closer because there was a draught coming in from the tent flap and the fire just outside had long since died down to a bit of smoldering embers. We were naked. Now Sofia's period was seriously overdue and I had given no signs I was anything but pleased with the situation, though I will confess I was worried about the health issues our hard adventuring lifestyle was having on her as well as any possible child within her. Anyway, back to why she and I would be naked. Well when a woman thinks she's pregnant by a guy she's really feeling secure with, her emotional need for lovemaking apparently rises somewhat dramatically. Not that I was complaining. Seriously now. Skyrim's most beautiful woman is insisting I divest her of all protective coverings and make love to her in a fur sleeping bag just big enough for two. What is wrong with this picture? I agree, not a damn thing.

"Okay," I whispered back. "What do we need to talk about."

"It's about that ugly bitchy fang faced blood sucking tramp you are taking back to her family estate."

"You mean Serana?"

"Yes, that ugly bitchy fang faced blood sucking monster tramp . . ."

"She can probably hear you if half of what I have heard about vampires is true," I suggested.

"She left her tent and wandered off," said Sofia. "I saw her go and so I figured . . ."

"You could let me know how much you hate her without making her feel awkward?" I queried.

"What makes you think I hate her? Just because she's a blood sucking . . ."

"That's right," I sighed. "You don't hate her, you're jealous. You are convinced that because I was nice enough to her to not kill her on sight, trusted her enough to let her camp with us, and did not go totally into hysterics when she bit into that thief we had just killed; even though she has pale skin, fangs, glowing red eyes, and a very obvious appetite for human blood, I just might be attracted to her?"

"Well?"

"I think you need to be made love to again," I concluded. I was awake, and it looked like I was going to stay that way and it's not a bad way to pass a little time especially when you have a woman with such luxuriant black hair and big baby blue eyes to look upon when you do it. Her mouth isn't a bad thing to kiss either.

"I'm not done talking with you, get those fingers off of . . . I . . . I . . . *sighs* We'll talk about this later."

"Yes," I said. "We will" And we spent the next half an hour, or more, kissing. And other things.

So what was I doing making love to my wife in a tent which was just across a dying camp fire from a tent where a vampire was relaxing, if not sleeping? Vampires are not known for their restraint and discipline. They are just as likely to drain you dry as just take a sip or two. And the problem with taking just a sip or two is that you can get infected and turn into one over a few days. So trusting a vampire is a very rare thing, and as a rule, seriously stupid. In fact, if you trust a vampire, it's usually because they are employing a classic mental seduction power on you which will turn you into a thrall. So Sofia had every reason to be just a little scared, though she seldom admitted such emotions. Admitting she got scared on occasion was one of the first things that, in hindsight, told me she was beginning to trust me enough to start to fall in love.

The problem was that something told me that Serana was different. First of all, she had been sealed up, but when she came to after she had started to fall out of that stone sarcophagus she did not display any serious deformation which marks a vampire's face when that vampire has not fed recently. And upon talking it was clear that she had been in that tomb for over a thousand years. She was not aware there was an Empire in Cyrodiil. According to my understanding, she should have savagely attacked us for our blood. Given all the fighting we had already done just getting there, she no doubt could smell it all over us. Yet she had quietly begun to ask questions and openly admitted she was a vampire.

In my understanding she showed evidence that she still possessed a good share of her humanity. Not that vampires lose all their humanity, but it is clear that over time, vampires will more often than not descend to the level of beast and become nothing but a predator. Predators which talk to you, but predators nevertheless. She didn't attack us. She argued instead that there was a reason why she had been locked up and she needed to find out where things stood before she could open up and explain things. And she had waited until that bandit attack and only fed upon the dead. Freshly dead granted but still dead. She didn't care for the remnants once the bodies had cooled down, but for the next five minutes after the fight she was happily sinking her teeth into the necks and arms of the corpses. Sofia had turned her back to Serana and made more than a few faces. I could not blame her. There is something rather unnerving about a woman who sinks a pair of fangs into a human corpse and closes her eyes while she just drinks with a contented expression on her face.

I was left with one of two conclusions. Either this vampire, Serana, was one of the most naive people I had ever encountered, and that was more than highly unlikely, or she knew something that was seriously out of whack and I needed to find out. My decision was confirmed the moment I popped the big question.

"Is that an Elder Scroll on your back?"

"Yes," she replied. "And it's mine."

Problem with a pile of Vampire Dust is that it doesn't tell you what you need to know. So I was going to escort this red eyed blood sucking fang faced gentle featured nicely dressed soft spoken . . . Serana, to her families estate.

So, the next question you no doubt have is this, what was I doing making these sorts of decisions to begin with? I ended the tale with Sofia admitting, for the first time since I had met her, that she loved me as we were heading to extract Esbern from the Ratway in Riften. Well, we got him out. Rumor has it that the entire town was vibrating from all the fireworks which went off down there due to the fact that we were there to find Esbern, the Thalmor were there to find Esbern and a hidden shrine to Talos, which wasn't actually there which was making the Thalmor more than a little frustrated giving them a tendency to fireball first and ask questions afterwards by means of Raise Zombie spells. Add one Thieve's Guild who's operations were being really curtailed by the Thalmor, and add one big pile of town guards being sent by Jarl Lalia the Law Giver trying to curtail both the Thieves and the Thalmor. So, you have the Thalmor being sabotaged by the Town Guard who are being sabotaged by the Thieve's Guild who are being sabotaged by the Thalmor and we're trying to get in and out with an old man and for some reason or another everyone was convinced we were working for the other guys.

"That adventure gave an entirely new meaning to the phrase, 'go out and kill something,'" offered Sofia that evening at dinner. She was in the process of digging into a very thick and gravy soaked meat pie accompanied with three bottles of Black Briar Reserve. "And to the term shouting."

"Romantic date then?" I offered.

"This is," she replied. "I wouldn't say that the Ratway was romantic. It was too loud to be romantic. Lot's of big colorful explosions, but you know? I don't find that particularly romantic. Well, all the dead Thalmor made me feel a little happy, rotten sewers, rotten Thalmor, kind of fits don't you think?" She refilled her mug with black briar and drained half the contents. "You haven't forgotten dessert have you?" she asked. It was at this juncture that she donned her bedroom eyes and I was promptly transformed into a full grown adult male utterly incapable of saying anything other than "duh where do we go duh where do we go?." It had only been a few hours since she had, for the first time in our relationship, told me that she loved me and I was walking on clouds the entire time we were incinerating all the crazy people. I will admit that singing "Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, I'm a big wonkin thing" while letting off fire bolts to the rhythm of my music was a bit over the top and best reserved for children's operettas, but after all those weeks of emotional turmoil, to know that at last she was mine forever was the biggest emotional high I have ever experienced.

From Riften we got to Riverwood where we linked up with Delphine and from there we went to an ancient ruin where the Blades had their origin. That was known as Sky Haven Temple which was between Whiterun and Markarth and crawling with tribal Forsworn who were more than happy to slaughter anyone who bothered to wander by. Sofia observed that with all the strange people in revealing costumes she felt right at home. And then we had a problem. Yes, after we had taken out the Thalmor, and the Bandits who were trying to jump us on the way from Riften to Skyhaven, and the Forsworn, we had a problem.

There was very little information on how to defeat Alduin. As Esbern tried to explain it from this gigantic stone carved mural on this large wall in the middle of this vast mountain top castle which reminded me a little of Cloud Ruler Temple, or what was left of it after the Thalmor had worked to smash it, Sofia complained about lectures and very publicly yawned. I elbowed her once and she made a fuss over that so I figured once we got out of there we would have our fight. Which we did. Yes, I schedule fights with my wife. Given her personality, all you have to do is say A) and she responds with a rather cheeky B) whereupon I reply with C) she follows with an angry D) and I reply with a decently loud E) and when she responds with F) her voice has reached that level of shriek that qualifies us as having a Valentine/Sofia domestic dispute. That over with, Sofia and I set out to meet with the Greybeards and learn the shout that was supposed to destroy Alduin and that was when we got into a very nasty brawl with vampires and we found ourselves being assisted by a group of men lead by an orc in a style of scale armor I had not encountered prior. And Sofia got infected, and this was the second time vampires had infected her during a fight with them. So I was seriously ticked off with these vampires and when the orc told me that he was a member of the Dawnguard and they were looking for volunteer vampire hunters, I replied, "Where do I sign up?"

So it was back to Riften on the road to Morrowind where in a hidden cleft (yes, another secret hideout, what is it with these Nords?) there was a small valley with a very big castle in it which was in the process of being cleaned up. Sofia observed that it was obvious that it was being cleaned up by men since cobwebs were all over the place. Isran was the head of the Dawnguard and he was one of those grim doom and gloom sorts of chipper Redguards who was fond of saying upbeat and optimistic things like "I knew it would come to this, but no one would believe me" and "Your pa's axe? Stendar preserve us."

My job had been to 'take the fight to the damn creatures' while he and the rest of the Dawnguard fixed up the rest of the castle. Sofia was more than skeptical that the cobwebs were going to be part of the picture. And so we were sent up to Dimhollow Crypt (WHY is it ALWAYS a crypt?) where we discovered that the Vigilants had beaten us to it, but had managed to get themselves killed doing it. It was an extremely ancient Nord Crypt. There was none of the stonework which marks more recent Nord crypts, meaning in the past thousand years. There was the usual component of skeletons and drauger and frostbite spiders, but there were also vampires who were no more welcomed by the crypt's denizens than we were. Not that the vampires had any sympathy for us. We were merely blood repositories to them and so there was that fighting as well.

"Sofi?" I asked. "Why is it that no one is ever happy to see us?"

"I'm clever and tough, you're Dragonborn, I'm beautiful and a great lover, they're jealous," she replied.

"You used to be beautiful, clever, and tough," I mused. "When did you turn into a great lover?"

"Do I have to explain that to you?" she asked.

Then we found ourselves in new architecture we had never seen before in all our wanderings through Skyrim. There was yet another fight with vampires and their thralls and there we were, in the center of a giant central plaza with a single stone carved post and on top of it was a button to be pushed.

We stared at the button for a moment.

"You going to push it?" she asked.

"You don't want to?" I asked. "Were you not complaining in the last crypt that I was hogging all the button pushing?"

"When have I ever complained that you were hogging all the button pushing?" argued Sofia. "It's mostly pulled chains and turning handles and picking locks. I don't recall the last button we pushed if any! But since we are on the subject of complaining, where is all the Alto Wine these days?"

"The last bandit lair had nothing but empty bottles, remember?"

"Oh yeah, bastards, drinking it all before we got there. Kind of wish they were all alive again so we could kill them a second time, you know?"

"Okay then," I said. "I'll push this button." When it came down to it there was just something a little creepy about the entire situation and I was slightly hesitant and needed a little 'this is what we're fighting for' pick me up. "For a kiss," I finished.

Sofia let out one of those world weary 'I'm so put upon sighs' and came up and promptly administered the treatment. Now being kissed by Sofia, there is quite frankly nothing in the world like it. I have never gotten tired of her style. She just really knows how to do the buck me up sort of kiss. There's nothing demure about her application. It's a full open mouth tickle the tonsils with the tongue tip sort of kissing which has covered a host of 'she's waking up crabby and hung over this morning' moments with her. So naturally I was ready to take on the world and with a dramatic twirl of my entire frame and a lifting up on high palm open expression, I slammed down on that button full throttle.

When we have dinner parties, this is the point where Sofia attempts to duplicate the expression on my face exactly a half second later. Jarl Elisif always giggles when she does it while Falk cringes and Sybille has this little grin and asks just how much blood there was that was spilled. My sister blushes slightly but we'll get to her eventually. Sofia has never gotten tired of laughing over that expression of mine. And if you want to know what it looked like? Ask her. I am not in the mood to relate it.

I never imagined spikes came in that large of a size and one of them had run right through my palm. Sofia, to her credit, was decent enough to wait a few hours before she started laughing at the expression which had been on my face when I saw that spike rise a full foot above the palm it had just punctured. Even to this day that hand is still a little stiff on cold mornings, which being this is Skyrim are nearly every single day.

Needless to say, we ignored the blue light magic which was floating all over the place for a few moments. Once my hand had been the recipient of sufficient restoration magic, we started the process of figuring out the next stage of the puzzle. That consisted of pushing these fonts to appropriate places in the plaza forming a pattern which did not seem to possess any in depth significance. Then when the last font was pushed into place, there was more magic, the plaza sank around the central pillar and there was a stone tower which had obviously been made to hold something.

We just looked at that stone hexagonal pillar for a moment.

"After what happened a few moments ago," mused Sofia. "If we opened that and Mehruns Dagon came out and killed us, I would not be particularly surprised." She paused. "So if you want to wait a moment before you open it, I'll understand." She paused again. "Do you want another kiss first?" Yet a further pause. "If you get killed can you first tell me where you put the mead in your backpack?"

One of the charms, and irritations of Sofia is not that she has these random thoughts which flit through her head on a constant basis. We all have those. What makes Sofia Sofia is that she frequently expresses them out loud such as when Jarl Elisif was appointing me Thane a few weeks later and in the middle of the investment ceremony Sofia asked rather loudly who it was standing near to her who happened to be suffering from a case of flatulence. Now she didn't use such intellectual language, she made references to the process by which cheese may be served in slices, and to the style of Black Hand Assassins, silent and deadly.

So I found the means by which the stone covering slid down and there was Serana, unconscious for a brief moment, falling out of this vertical column and me catching her so her head landed next to my shoulder, and open throat. Her eyes opened immediately and I got to look into that deep glowing red while Sofia began with an "Oh my," then added a rather crude descriptor of our loving making, and then ended with an appeal to the God Stendar. She makes these curious appeals when she is totally unnerved.

So in my mind, there was no reason why the vampire Serana would not have immediately latched on to my throat. The fact that she didn't is really the chief reason why I didn't shiv her shortly thereafter.

At this point you should be caught up back to the tent where Sofia and I were making love. Well we've finished now and it's not the sort of thing that frankly is any of your business so we were back to just laying there, with Sofia looking very relaxed and content and me reminding her that she wasn't the only one who thought she was the most beautiful woman in Skyrim, I was firmly of that opinion as well and why replace her for a vampire who was only half as pretty and capable of administering the most deadly hickey known to man? Sofia simply smiled and gazed into my eyes, which of course I was more than happy to gaze back at. We do that a lot after we make love.

There was the crunch of snow outside, a flap of the tent cover, and the sounds of someone crawling into the tent.

"I know I should be grateful for all the help you've given me so far," came Serana's voice. "But it would help me if we didn't travel all day. The sun, it's so bright. How can you stand it?"

"It's not bright for us Serana," I said. I paused. "Don't you remember playing in it when you were a child?"

There was silence.

"That was ages ago," came the sigh. "I barely remember my childhood. I know I had one. And I think I was happy during it." More silence.

Sofia gave me one of those 'she's a monster she's not supposed to have a happy childhood' sort of looks. I gave her a 'we'd better get dressed even though I really like holding your naked body next to mine' sort of looks back. She then gave me a 'the feeling's mutual especially because you make me feel warm and safe and secure when you do it and my old boyfriend never did that for me' sort of look. Yeah, we give each other looks a lot. We then started to work our way back into our undergarments and clothes.

"We might as well start to travel, Serana," I said. "We're both awake."

"Having a hard time sleeping?" came Serana's voice.

"Yeah," sighed Sofia. She gave me a curved two finger gesture which suggested a pair of fangs sinking into her throat while making a "I'm dying" facial expression.

It took us a while to pack up because it was still dark, the moons had set, and when I would ask Serana where something was, since I presumed her night vision would be superior to anything I or Sofi could possess, she, with typical woman's expressiveness, would say 'over there' and not bother to actually point where it was, or 'right by you' without mentioning that it was behind me for example. If anyone happens to know a woman who can say "it's over there by the big rock next to the fire" or "it's right behind you just turn and look down by your feet" please let me know so I can hire her to teach Sofi and Serana communication skills?

Packed up we set out towards Solitude. Serana's description of her home was almost as vague as her comments on the locations of our camping gear. "It's on an island west of Solitude," she said. There are of course several islands west of Solitude, one of them is known as Summerset, which is also west of Anvil and Stross M'kai which are on the western coast of Tamriel. You might point out that Serana probably meant something closer and my response is how would you know? All I knew was that it wasn't around Morrowind. So I presumed that Solitude was going to be a bit out of the way but I wanted to unload some of our plunder and transform that into gold. And besides, I had a surprise for Sofia in Solitude and I was no longer willing to wait for some adventuring business to take us there.

We proceeded down the road towards Dragon Bridge. And after a few moments of silence, Serana, wanting to get to know us better, proceeded to start asking Sofia questions.

"So, how long have you two been together?"

"Since mid First Seed," was Sofia's reply.

"How long have you been lovers?"

"That's kind of hard to explain? He wanted me but I was convinced he didn't, then we woke up married and he was being really nice about it, as far as it's possible for a guy to be nice?"

"Yeah I know all about that," suggested Serana. "Wait! You said you woke up married? How do you wake up married?"

"You party with Sanguine when you don't know you're partying with Sanguine, and there you are, in Markarth's temple of Dibella, in their nuptial chamber, naked, with this really pretty ring on your finger, the wedding dress in a pile on the floor next to the bed, and you have his stuff dribbling out from . . .

"I think that's all I need to know," suggested Serana.

"Damn it, I keep talking longer than I should," sighed Sofia.

"So when did you decide to love him back, if it wasn't . . . When you woke up married, or was it?"

"Oh, well it was like when you start to drink Honningbrew and it reminds you of Black Briar but tastes better so you have another bottle and you're not sure so you have another one to see if it really is just as good, and since it is, you have another bottle and it's good enough to celebrate with so you drink a couple more bottles and then you're flat on your back? And you really want to pull him on top of you but you're still in the tavern and everyone is staring at you and that would be pretty awkward?"

"I'm not sure I get the analogy," sighed Serana.

"Well it helped that he was up to my standards, being Dragonborn and a friend of Jarls with a house carl who is a bit bitchy but since Valentine says she's not as pretty as me I've decided to stop suggesting he kill her when she isn't expecting it. But also he just kept doing nice things to me and didn't run screaming when I did the sort of things that guys normally run screaming from."

"I kind of understand that," agreed Serana. "I have to be really careful when I see a guy that's looking really sweet and handsome. If I walk up and smile and they almost always turn and walk the other way."

"I can't imagine why they would," lied Sofia.

"I can," replied Serana. "But it was sweet of you to lie like that."

Sofia sighed.

"But back to the thing that guys run screaming from, what was it about Valentine?"

"He wasn't like my last boyfriend. The one who dumped me after I gained a couple of inches around the waist."

"He dumped you because you gained a bit of weight?"

"Sort of, there was a bit more to it but that was one of the reasons. I was really upset," continued Sofia.

"It's always emotional," agreed Serana.

"I always miss the guys I break up with," added Sofia.

"Yeah after all that investment in the relationship . . ."

"I need to learn to aim better with my bow," finished Sofia.

"Ah," mused Serana.

"So, what's it like having a pair of fangs?"

"Sofia? You are the first person to ever ask me that, I'm not sure what I should say."

"You mean I asked that out loud?"

"Yes."

"Damn it."

Serana laughed. "You are so refreshing," she said. "I spent so much of my time with family and courtiers who never would say exactly what they were thinking. So, what's it like having molars?"

"I dunno. They're just part of me, it's not like I bite myself or anything with them."

"Same here, they're just part of me."

"Can I see them?"

"Hmmm?"

"I've seen vampire teeth before, but only when I was trying to kill the vampire and they were snarling at me or such. Um, I'm sort of curious in a strictly scientific way if you get my meaning so this isn't some sort of creepy girl on girl action . . . Although you aren't bad looking . . . I'll just shut up now."

I paused, shook my head, and turned around and there was Serana, standing with her head slightly tilted back, her mouth wide open while Sofia looked at her teeth.

"There are grooves in the back of them," observed Sofia.

"Well, yes, that's how we are able to draw the blood up. If they were just round? We would have to stop biting and remove them to suck the blood up. By having that channel in the back, the blood just flows up as we swallow."

Sofia paused and looked at me with a bit of wide eyed wonder and pointed to Serana's open mouth.

"It's okay," I said. "You don't mind Serana?" I continued.

"How do I explain it? It feels like I'm a kid with my playmates. I don't mind."

She had a point. There was just something childlike and innocent (outside of her awkward assurances that she wasn't a Lesbian) about what Sofia had just done with her. Like when Aurelian, my half-brother, and I were kids and we would compare our hands with dad's.

"It makes sense," I mused as we continued to walk. "Down in the Black Marsh area there are bats which eat blood. They are of course called vampire bats. They bite, but then they lick the blood that oozes from the wound while their saliva acts to keep the blood from coagulating.

"That's why it's really hard to get all the blood I want from a corpse," sighed Serana. "Once the person is dead their blood starts to coagulate very quickly afterwards and you can't draw it up. It's why I always preferred being an adventurer. I could count on having foes to fight and I could drink them as part of my defeating them. That's one of the reasons why I'm not looking forward to going home. All that's there are the cattle."

"You don't like cow's blood?" asked Sofia.

Serana just looked at her. And Sofia's eyes got wide for a moment. But I began to think. Serana wasn't just holding on to her humanity, she was actively adjusting her life along specific lines in order to maintain it. It was a very good sign. We were passing Morthal to the north and it looked as if we would make Dragon's Bridge before it got too late. But in order to make Dragon's Bridge, we would be walking through the day. I looked towards the east. The sky was just beginning to brighten up behind all the mountains.

"Serana?" I said looking at her. "I think we need a bit of a plan in order to get you to your family estate."

"How so?"

"Well, you mentioned the sun bugs you, which I don't find surprising since I thought you all crumbled into dust when the sunlight hit you."

"It does some," admitted Serana. "But it depends on the branch of Vampires. I'm a Daughter of Coldharbor. It's not good for my skin if you know what I mean. I sunburn almost immediately and it just gets worse from there. And it's like walking in very blazing white light. But if I have enough to drink first, I can get through it."

I nodded. "So here's the problem Serana." I continued. "Sofia and I, being normal people, have a harder time seeing at night than we do at day, and you have just confessed having a harder time seeing in the day than the night."

Serana nodded.

"And as a team, we all have to look out for each other. So what I am thinking we need to do is pull our twelve hours travel from twelve to twelve. The feed back I need from you is this, do you prefer traveling from Noon to Midnight or from Midnight to Noon?"

"Midnight to Noon," replied Serana. "If we have fights, the blood provides swift relief from the sun, so the closer to the day I drink, the better since the relief lasts longer."

"Next question," I proceeded. "Animal blood. Does it meet your nutrition needs?"

"It can," she replied. "But it takes a lot more blood and animals are harder to drink from."

"No surprise there," I observed. "But I've got something to help with that."

"You do?" she asked.

I raised my right hand and let a greenish glow form. "Calm spell," I answered. "Seems to work on every animal we will encounter except dragons. Has gotten us out of a few jams such as when we walk into a pack of Frostbite Spiders."

"I don't eat spiders," replied Serana.

"I don't like eating them myself either," I replied.

"Valentine?" gasped Sofia. "You have eaten spiders?"

"It was when I was in this Khajiit village on the border of Cyrodiil," I explained.

"Before they all went Elsweyr," giggled Sofia. "Get it? Else Where?"

"They were teaching me these curious purr songs and so when the time for dinner showed up, I joined them in the inn and they served me what I thought tasted like crab legs. They told me they were spider legs, but I don't like crab legs so naturally I don't like spider legs either. So what animals do you prefer Serana?"

"Why do you ask? I'm sure there will be a few more bandits . . ."

"Not once we get to Dragon's Bridge," I replied. "Jarl Elisif has really cracked down and I dare say there are hardly any bandits on the road to Solitude from Dragons Bridge."

"There was that one cave on the north shore," observed Sofia.

"Defining word being was," I replied. "We already took them out."

"I got so upset when their headquarters burst into flames from our fire-bolts and all that Colovian Brandy exploded and just blew the roof off. I thought I was going to cry," sighed Sofia. "I hate seeing good drink wasted like that."

"Yeah I know that feeling," sighed Serana. "There was this really cute guy skinny dipping under the moonlight in the Karth river once."

"Oh?" asked Sofia with a bit of a giggle.

"And his shoulders were so broad that even his muscles had muscles. So I really wanted to sink my teeth into him."

"And?" continued Sofia.

"So I walked up to the shore, waited for him to notice me, we chatted for a moment and then when the moonlight came out from behind the clouds, I unfastened my dress and let it fall to my ankles and asked him if I could join him? And he said 'Shor's bones, you are most welcome . . ."

"And?"

"That's when all those slaughterfish got him," sighed Serana. "Such a waste."

"You really do understand," mused Sofia.

I just kept looking straight ahead. The two girls continued to chat, with Sofia becoming more and more adjusted to Serana. I had to admit she was a polite girl and there was something so mundane about her behavior, especially the part about how she wasn't getting along with her father. What was it with girl's and their fathers? I got along fine with my dad. My mother on the other hand, but we don't need to replay that. Then the transition from dawn to daylight came and there was a brief 'ow!' from Serana as the sky made that shift from fuzzy blue to bright blue and the shadows from the mountains to the south of us became firm and distinct. I turned around and she was pulling her hood down over her face. I turned back around and saw ahead, three nice big bucks. I held up my hand and the girls behind me stopped.

"What?" asked Sofia.

"I think I have an idea," I said. "Serana? You hungry?"

"More thirsty than hungry," she replied. "Why? Are there bandits ahead?"

"Nice big buck deer," I replied. "Let's see if this works."

I cast a fury spell upon the one buck looking at us. It's one of the lowest and least powerful illusion spells out there, but it has it's uses. The idea I had worked, the creature charged us, it's head lowered and it's antlers pointed straight at me.

"Hold!" I said as I heard spells being activated behind me.

The deer came forward at full throttle and at the last moment I managed to get the calm spell off and the deer came to a sudden standstill with our nose tips almost touching.

Then Sofia's fireball went off in my face.

I am not sure how long I was on the ground but when I came to Serana was busy wiping her mouth off and getting up from the dead buck while Sofia was sitting next to me with a rather peeved look on her face.

"About time you got up," she said.

"I said 'hold' for a reason," I snapped.

"Like I was going to let that animal hurt you?" she shot back. "The only horny dear around here that's gonna get to do any penetrating is you and that's only with me."

"I had it under control!" I insisted getting up and feeling my face for any burns. Like most fireballs, it was more explosive than fire and so thanks to the fact that I had enchanted a ring with fire resistance, given the occasion dragon attack, it had not hurt me so much as blown me back.

"Um," offered Serana. "Thanks for breakfast."

"And don't you ever go calling Serana, dear again!"

"I didn't call Serana, dear!"

"Yes you did. I heard it, you said 'Nice big buck, dear!'"

"That was nice big buck deer! As in four footed male member of the deer species?"

"We can start walking if you like?" suggested Serana.

"You think I don't know the difference between dear and deer?" retorted Sofia. "Well think again!"

"Well you obviously don't if you think I'm going to call a woman I just pulled out of a thousand year sleep, dear, especially after spending the last two months of my life on one oblivion filled emotional storm fest trying to prove to you that I love you!" I argued.

"This is getting somewhat awkward," advised Serana.

"And that's just it!" shouted Sofia. "You're already suggesting she's a sleeping beauty!"

"Like oblivion I am!"

"If you're going to argue about me, can we at least do it in the shade?" asked Serana.

"The roving eyes of men!" snorted Sofia throwing her hands up.

I was about to embark on yet another long winded explanation of how I found Sofia way prettier than Serana when it dawned on me that Serana was standing right there. I looked at her. Then Sofia looked at her. Serana tried to look at the rim of her hood.

"Damn it," sighed Sofia.

"You'll like us once you get used to us," I suggested to Serana.

"I can hardly wait," replied Serana in a very polite sounding tone.

I started walking forward again and in a moment, as it was clear to Sofia that I wasn't going to stay and continue the argument, she fell in. Serana was quiet for a while. We passed the road north to Morthal and began to descend down a set of hills. Then there was that first brief breath of warm air which suggested we were leaving one of the chill zones of Skyrim and the snow began to show signs it was melting. We crossed a bridge and were in clear tundra and woodland while the sky overhead became increasingly overcast.

"Nice weather," mused Serana. I turned back and she had a slight smile on her face. I couldn't see her eyes as her hood was pulled down low. But I got the impression that because the sun was now behind clouds, she was experiencing less discomfort.

"Can you see where you're going?" I asked.

"I can see the road right in front of me," replied Serana. "I follow the sounds of your footsteps. Your's sound like you know where you're going."

"Oh?"

"I'm not sure about Sofia's. She's made three types of noises while walking. The first set was a sort of skipping, then after breakfast, a sort of hard slap, and now, half slap half walk, half tired shuffle."

"You owe me a foot rub tonight," suggested Sofia. "We've been walking since we left the Dawnguard on the border of Morrowind."

"Yes dear," I replied.

"He just up and agrees?" exclaimed Serana surprised.

"Why not? He loves me. This is what he does to prove it," replied Sofia. Her tone suggested she had decided to forgive me. Not that I had actually done anything but this is Sofia we're talking about.

"And so I take advantage of it," finished Sofia.

Like I said, this is Sofia we are talking about.

"Foot rubs, shoulder rubs, back scratches, full body rub downs, and then my favorite . . ."

"You don't have to elaborate further," advised Serana.

"You sure? He has really great fingernails which scratch all those extra itchy spots and. . . "

"I was recollecting how dad hardly did anything to show he loved mom when they were still speaking," sighed Serana proceeding in her determined decision to return to the original subject for reasons I could entirely sympathize with. "Now that I think of it, I don't remember a thing."

"Yeah," sighed Sofia. She proceeded to relate her own parents backstory, of which I have already related since it was what we talked about on the wagon ride to the Thalmor Embassy. Needless to say, the two girls proceeded to comment at length upon their anguish over their parents but I noticed something different between the two. Sofia and Serana both remembered when their parents loved each other, though Serana's memory was clearly a bit more hazy on it. But where as Sofia had gotten increasingly angry as her parents had drifted apart, Serana had become more grieving.

I couldn't help but muse on my situation. I figured I had to be lucky. My dad insisted on loving my mother even though she had tried to kill the son of his first wife. For that reason he had not locked her up in the dungeons of the Imperial City, but had kept her locked up in the attic of our Temple District Town House. And he had slept up there every night, trusting Aurelian, my half-brother, with the key. Oh she howled about being locked up, and no doubt took it out on him routinely. But he would simply suggest she might prefer the dungeons and she would be silent for a few days after that. She knew what she had done. But dad had always told me that marriage was for better or worse and mom was going through a worse phase. She would get over it at some point he was certain. But just the same, leaving so she couldn't twist me up over time was a wise thing and he hoped someday he would be able to send a message that it would be okay to come home. I had sent him a letter telling him I had met and married Sofia and hoped some day that he could meet her. Of course I didn't tell him that I hoped she would be a little more settled down before that happened nor did I give him the full account of the circumstances of how we had ended up married.

"I'm still curious about how you two met," continued Serana.

"Well, I remember how I first noticed Valentine," began Sofia.

I had never heard this. I was going to pretend that I was nowhere near the two of them, not that I was being noticed. When those two started to really talk, it was as if I was nowhere in sight. I had no problem with that, you never know what you'll find out when you sit quietly behind a pack of women chatting.

"There was this thief in Rorikstead, named Lokir . . ."

I had to press my jaw from bursting into a very vocal surprise. I remembered Lokir very well.

" . . . And of course he was totally smitten by me being that the only female in the town which had won any sort of prize for being good looking was a goat named Gleda. So I decided to let him buy me drinks one night and it ended with us deciding to steal a pair of horses from the local Whiterun Patrol."

Sofia was entirely lost in the story and all the while for some silly reason or another my heart was beating rapidly. Maybe it was because I was about to find out how long she had been watching me from a distance before we met.

" . . . We rode south even though we were going to sell them in Hammerfell since any pursuit would need to be lost thinking we were heading into Cyrodiil. And being that he was your typical rude Nord guy, he was always riding ahead which I really didn't mind because that meant he would run into the guards first. But what he ran into first was this really good looking guy well dressed and clearly educated riding up from Bruma."

I couldn't help but smile. I knew who that good looking guy was.

"And so I didn't catch up, but stayed just out of earshot and eyeshot because I figured if I rode up Lokir would immediately act like I was his and this new guy was obviously going to be able to buy me more drinks. So naturally I decided to wait until I could find him by himself and turn on the feminine wiles?"

"He's pretending he's not listening," observed Serana.

"He's not a good actor," replied Sofia. "Anyway the nice thing about hanging behind and just following from a distance is when the two of them stumble into an Imperial ambush just as the Stormcloaks run into it as well, you are able to watch from a distance and laugh."

I tried not to roll my eye and exhale my annoyance.

"So I watched them change into their prison rags and get into that wagon. I rode up to the rear guard which was behind the wagon which was behind them, and put on my cute and innocent face and said, "Wow, you guys are really nice and brave and strong? Where are you going to stop so I can get to know you better?" And of course they said they were heading for Helgen where they were going to meet up with General Tullius. So I said, "I can hardly wait" and rode off to Helgen."

I spent a few seconds struggling to see if I could recall any woman riding by the caravan on a horse. And I couldn't. But then again, my head was pounding and only be keeping my eyes closed and trying to sleep had I been able to get through that day of riding. There would have been nothing in the sound of her horses hooves which would have distinguished them from the other horse hooves in the caravan. I sighed to myself. The woman I was going to fall in love with had ridden by my wagon, probably cast a glance at me while she rode by, and I had not seen her. It was kind of like when I had woken up only to discover that I had married her and not had any memory of it.

"I had a nice day drinking and then when they came in, I got up on the inn balcony and watched them all get ready for execution. I was a bit upset about that because there was my next sugar daddy being taken to the chopping block. And you know? He looked like he was being brave. He said something or another but all I could hear was when he shouted 'I live and breath a Stormcloak' and then he walked over to the block and put his head on it himself."

"Sounds impressive," observed Serana.

"It was," agreed Sofia. "Of course this was before I had actually gotten to know him. That changes your perspective. But I will confess my heart was beating rather passionately there for a moment. But then that dragon attacked. I saw him and one of the Stormcloaks head into the tower right next to the inn while I was busy grabbing all the mead I could and then I got out of the Inn and headed for the gate. I turned around and there he was again, but he ran in another direction with an Imperial and I wasn't going to chase him. I was kind of clinking a lot with all the bottles in my backpack and that sort of thing really doesn't impress a guy. They either think you are a drunk or an alchemist and when you can't give them a potion to improve their manhood, which they will always ask for, they conclude you are a drunk."

I was of course listening very intently. Sofia was being Sofia of course, but at the same time, it was kind of fun to listen to knowing she had been there in Helgen watching me.

"So I got out of Helgen and got up on a rock formation where I was able to watch the dragon blow the town up and since I had all that mead in my backpack, I figured a few bottles could be drunk and so when the dragon left and I turned around, there he was again with a Stormcloak heading towards Riverwood. I followed behind quietly and once they got there, it didn't take long before the scuttlebutt at the inn was that Gerder had asked him to head to Whiterun as soon as he could to let the Jarl know. Well he was busy working around the town doing odd jobs and errands, and that's really boring to watch and besides, I figured if he met me in Whiterun he would be less inclined to think I had been in Helgen. So I rode to Whiterun, did my cute and innocent act pretending that I had just found this horse on the road and did anyone know who owned it? Of course the captain was more than happy to inform me that it belonged to the Whiterun Guard and the Jarl himself would be happy to reward me. I got all excited and happy and of course the next thing I know he was getting me drinks at the inn and before long everyone, but especially that gullible Bard Michael were getting me everything I could ask for."

"And how long did this last?" queried Serana.

"I kind of lost track that evening and the next couple of days kind of fly by. You know how it is when you're having fun. Somewhere during that time I lost my clothes, distracted the guard so that a thief escaped, nearly killed two guys because I was walking around with no clothes on, so I never got rewarded by the Jarl, and I ended up sleeping in the stable next to that horse I had stolen in Rorikstead and wouldn't you know it, here comes Valentine asking me so politely, with this little boy smile on his face, if he might have some of the hay I was sleeping on."

Sofia stopped right there. I smiled to myself. She wasn't going to admit she was totally caught by surprise when I had showed up and proceeded to practically burble out that she had been following me for a while.

Serana, with a tone in her voice that suggested a certain ironic amusement, observed, "So you two met because you were stalking him."

"No it wasn't like I was stalking him or anything," insisted Sofia.

"Sofia," continued Serana, as I turned around to note that there was this little grin on her face. "When you are acting like a vampire, don't expect a vampire to not notice."

"I was not acting like a vampire," insisted Sofia.

"She has a point Sofi," I intruded. It was an appropriate juncture to do so. "She plays polite and friendly to get blood, you play sweet and lovable to get mead. Not much difference save Serana remains sober and dressed at the end of it."

Sofia was quiet for a moment.

"I'll have to show you some of my tricks," suggested Serana, looking back at Sofia.

Sofia paused for a second opened mouthed, then leaned forward, half covered her mouth with her left hand, and giggled.

I turned back and shook my head. I also noted that Serana had not denied the obvious suggestion that she had, by being polite and friendly to us, gotten fed. That of course made me wonder if she was putting the thrall spell upon us. I double cast dispel magic on myself, failed to note any difference in my thinking, and accordingly concluded that she had not been using that power on us. She was literally being just polite and friendly. Sofia and she were back to chatting about girl stuff. Serana wanted to know what the fashions were in Skyrim this season as well as some of the favorite songs and Sofia was singing them in her rich alto voice, and getting the words totally wrong. I had to admit, we both were starting to like this two fanged blood sucking young woman. There was something so refreshing about a vampire being just honest with us and herself.

This was going to be one of the more interesting adventures I was about to have.


End file.
